My sore throat, hoarse voice and chronic cough aren't coming from upstairs at all, but down. It's GERD. Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease.
In other words: what goes down must come up.
I went to a specialist, finally. I liked Dr. Shipley at first. He came in with one of those Dr. Kildare reflectors on his head.
Yeah. Like that, only not scary.
So talked to me about my symptoms, and I was thinking asthma, allergies, too much secondhand smoke. Then he put the scope up my nose and fed it down my throat so he could snap pictures of my innards. This is not a pleasant experience. Miles would tell you that I have no discernable gag reflex, which is why he loves me so. Dr. Shipley hit crap with the camera that darn near made me hurl across the room. And, as he moved the frickin' thing up and down my main pipe, he kept asking me to vocalize "heeeeeeeee." It came out more like "aaaaaaaakkkkkkkphbttt." All five times.
I crossed my eyes and watched the camera as it came out of my nose. Damn you for laughing, Doctor Shipley!
The glossy pictures of my glossy, pink epiglottis revealed that I have a node on my vocal chords, causing the hoarseness. And now, I can identify the sore throat for what it really is: bile backwash.
My life has turned into a list of NOs:
No coffee
No soda
No spicy food
No large portions
No eating before bedtime
No sleeping on my stomach
No smoking
No beer
No bad habits
The more I consider the list, the more I realize that I could have been driven to this by much more serious problems. Which makes me feel oddly lucky.
It's just GERD. It's not heart disease or diabetes or (I hate to even think it) cancer. It's just bile backwash.
Hell, who knows? I may get healthier, just because I got sick.
2 comments:
There's something strangely ironic about getting pharmaceutical stock spam, on a posting about GERD.
Oh, is THAT what it was? I didn't read it. I went straight to the "getting pissed off" part.
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