You CAN hear me now!

Thanks for the kind thoughts and well wishes from you all--Catherine's trip to the doc yesterday went well and was quite interesting.

I was already put out that I had to leave an hour earlier than I had planned due to a scheduling snafu--seems they need extra time in cases where they might have to do the earpokery procedure. Sure would have been nice to have known that a bit earlier than 10 am yesterday, but whatever.

Anyway, got out of here a bit late and sped out to Trussville on a gas tank full of fumes, stopped by the office and checked her out (with the admonition from the receptionist to get a doctor's excuseblah blah blah--YEAH, YEAH--I get it, I gotta GO!) and sped BACK across town to the doctor's office on even less fumes, decided to go to the parking deck across the street from the office building rather than the big one that requires you to go through a whole maze of corridors and crosswalks to finally get there (but with no cheese reward, drat it all) and managed to get behind some maroon who had either 1) never driven a car before, or 2) had never driven a car before AND had never been to this hospital before. Two miles per hour, slowly weaving in between the pretty yellow lines, carefully reading each sign--GO!GO!GO! I have to GO!.

Finally got past her and flew down to the parking deck and found myself behind YET ANOTHER person without a care in the world, and was obviously several hours early for her appointment, causing her to creep up the parking deck floors with the blinding velocity of a slug, except for those instances when the brake lights would suddenly come on indicating that there might be a parking space available--you know, if a car wasn't already occupying it. All the way to the top of the stinking garage--creep, STOP, creep, creep, STOP, crawwwwwwl, STOP. Finally she found a place. SO, she started BACKING UP. Grr. And once more, with feeling. GRRR! Cat said, "Daddy, what's wrong with that girl?!" I quietly explained that sometimes they let people who have had lobotomies drive a bit too soon afterwards, and they aren't quite ready for the challenge. "Oh."

She backed, and turned, and pulled up, and turned, and turned, and backed, and pulled up, and turned, and pulled up, and then, decided she couldn't fit in the space. So on she went up another floor and FINALLY found a row of spaces with sufficient maneuvering room to park, and I very politely drove on around her back bumper before punching it and squalling up the final floor of the deck and doing a bootlegger turn into the parking spot right by the elevator. (Not really. It was one space over from the elevator.)

We hopped out and got on the elevator and down to the bridge and into the building and right into the office. Only 15 minutes late, but there was no one in the waiting room, and no one behind the desk seemed particularly bothered. Still had to sit down and wait. ::sigh::

Waited long enough to read an old Entertainment Weekly (gonna HAVE to see that much-talked-about Affleck-Lopez film called Gigli. Sounds GREAT!) and then Catherine got called back to the exam room.

Well, still stopped up. The doctor went over the procedure, and recommended just draining the gunk and seeing how it did before going ahead and putting in a tube, which was good news. So, he pumped in some anesthetic goo into her ear and we sat for thirty minutes reading books. (I do not like green eggs and ham, by the way.) The nurse patted Cat's head and told her everything would be just fine, and went on out the door. "Is she talking Spanish?" Heh. Actually, she sounds Eastern European, and I told Cat I thought she was from Russia or Ukraine. "Oh. I like her--she's nice." Indeed so.

The doc came back in after while and got his big metal earlookascope and a plastic cone and went to work. After a tiny audible pop (eww) he got a thin metal suction tube and proceeded to clear out all the ick (ewwww). It seemed like it went on forEVER, and most of the time Catherine was very still, with just one bit of discomfort when something came out that made a VERY loud noise, which I imagine probably hurt a good bit. In any event, it was over with in about a minute. Some drops, some cotton, and she was ready to go (and come back in two weeks).

We made our appointment and walked on out to the corridor. The moment we cleared the door, she pulled the cotton out and grabbed my arm. "I want to hear Clocky!"

"Clocky" being my wristwatch, and the standard measure of ear stoppitude. It's a mechanical watch, so it makes a constant ticktick sound rather than the one second ticks of a quartz watch, and it's pretty faint, so if you can hear it, you aren't too badly stopped up. So, she grabbed my arm and held Clocky up to her head, and for the first time in months she heard it loud and clear. She grinned a sweet little grin and looked up at me and with the sincerity and love only a child can have, quietly said, "Can we go to McDonald's?"

Seeing as how I had to pay two dollars to get out of the deck, leaving me with only one, and we also needed to get gas, I told her we would get a wonderful snack at the gas station. So, off once more to home, where we stopped at the Chevron and filled up with gas--19.3 gallons, in a tank with a total capacity of 20--and got a pack of cheese curls.

She was very happy.

OH, and I forgot to get a doctor's excuse.
posted by Terry at 8:49:00 AM