The Perils of Too-Frequent Q-Tipping

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you will know that I am a hypochondriac. And mostly I blame my parents, because, hello?!?!?!?!

triplebypassbreastcancercoloncancerdiverticulitisholyshitI'mgoingtodieahhhhhhhhhh!

And because it's convenient to blame one's parents to avoid fully acknowledging one's own inherent nutiness. Nutitude. Nuthood.

(Nutever. Heh.)

Also, I have a health care team who love to indulge my whims and schedule lots of tests for my symptoms. Usually we call these people good doctors. For the purpose of this blog post, however, we are calling them enablers.

So anyhooo I'd been having these really persistent swollen glands in my neck, forever. Right under my ears. They were a little sore. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands that last a long time. A hypochondriac loathes swollen glands, because usually a hypochondriac will start Googling. And despite what the Google says, the hypochondriac will not be held down, and will keep Googling until she finds something awful and horrible that is bound to befall her or that is befalling her that very moment.

So one day, while I was cleaning my ears for the third time, it dawned on me.

Hey, dumb ass, the ear is a self-cleaning body part. Maybe all the q-tips you stick in there 20 times a day aren't helping. Maybe by f*cking with the self-cleaning mechanism of the ear you are introducing bad things, and hence, your glands are telling you to knock it the hell off. Idiot.

It's true. I am a compulsive ear-cleaner. And those warnings on the q-tip box to avoid putting the q-tip into the ear canal? I totally ignore that shit.

So a few days with only washing the outside of my ears along with my face in the shower, and my swollen glands are gone. Just like that.

I am an idiot-genius.

But then I come home from school last night, and sit down on the couch with my husband.

"Where's your iPod?" I ask. "I'm gonna jog in a bit."

"Oh yeah...." he says, frowning dramatically. "I go to pay the bills tonight and charge up my iPod and while I'm taking off the earphones, I see a big hunk of earwax hanging on one side. That was nasty!"

I am mortified. Earwax, like a booger, is something you don't want on display. It's like the perfect example of how human beings are just disgusting saliva-mucus-hair factories and there is nothing attractive about us. As a lot, we are smelly, sticky and atrocious.

"I'm really sorry. I haven't been cleaning my ears as frequently as I used to." And then I go into my account of the glands and the ear cleaning and what a stellar detective I could be.

"Well, that doesn't mean you should stop cleaning your ears altogether."

Snap.

So now with the glands down, I'm focusing on this crick I have in my upper spine.

(I'm thinking it's a pinched nerve.)

****Adding that when husband says he took off earphones, he meant removing them from the device and not taking them out of his own ear. *****