Hey, guess what? TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA! Today my ENT came busting into the examination room and shouted, So, do you think you're better? I liked his pep so, after a moment's consideration, enthused a resounding, YES! He hurried me into a show-off room where my high resolution scan was on display. He said, LOOK! You're all cleared up, it's perfect! WHAT??? And sure enough, my botched right cheek sinus looked as clean as a whistle, just like the left side. NO BURSTING INFECTION! NO INFLAMED SINUS LINING! NO SURGERY! NO MORE MEDS! NO MORE AOL ARTICLE! YA-HOO!!!!!!! Thank you, all of you who prayed, thank you, Lord! I could barely register the GREAT NEWS that I did not have the big scary "M" before he dropped the bomb, You don't have frontal sinuses. WHAT??? Those are the ones in the front of the forehead above the eyes. Whoa! Wonder what else I don't have up there. I ventured, wide-eyed, Is that unusual? The answer to that is, About 5% of the population doesn't have them. Okay, I've always said I like to be different (I have my mother to thank for that, she always preached, Don't be afraid to be different.) Just a year ago my GYN asked, Has anyone ever told you your uterus is tipped backward? As a matter of fact, NOOO. But should this surprise me? I rather think not. When I was 5 years old my feet bunionized (not in dictionary, but should be, 'cause that's what happened) themselves (don't laugh, it's not funny, who ever heard of a 5 year old with bunions?). When I was 12 I had teeth braces to fix my mouth (recessed lower jaw) and a hefty, HORRIBLE back brace to straighten my curved spine (scoliosis). Then came the acne (self-explanatory) and whiskers (electrolysis). Let's not forget that I developed TMJ (crunching jaw syndrome) at age 21 and had to wear a bulky disgusting mouth piece the year I was engaged. T'wrn't I a beauty? For crying out loud, it's a wonder I didn't run away from myself. No wonder my mother told me not to be afraid to be different. (Eeegads, my husband doesn't know all this, I'm gonna scare him off BIG TIME, he's my Number One Blog Follower :) It was so bad and sad to have all these defects. PLUS thunder-thighs. And the methods of correction left A LOT to be desired. I can't emphasize A LOT enough. But I'll save that for another day. Right now I'm just delirious to have escaped the knife. I really, really, super-seriously didn't want more sinus surgery. I mean, I watched on the Internet (dangerous) how they do sinus surgery, and they remove bone and make holes bigger and scrape out infected tissue. I was wondering if a second surgery would leave anything to hold me up, what with the bone removal, etc. I guess in this modern day and age bone is obsolete. Yeah, the bone removal was freaking me, you should have seen the cartoon of it, they showed tweezers (with which I'm VERY familiar) jauntily plucking away pieces of bone that supported the sinus shaft. This bone resembled a ladder of sorts, and the tweezers efficiently removed it rung by rung. The operation was executed in a quick rhythmic pulse: pluck, pause, pluck, pause, pluck. They kept plucking until no bone was left . . . at all. My nose is already over-sized and abused, no way do I want to deliberately annihilate its support structure. Well, ENT might be forced to give me a new nose if that happened, which might not be such a bad idea, he does do nose jobs. Just add rhinoplasty to my resume. Of course, if I got plastic nose, my grandparents would turn over in their graves (see below). I'm thinking that right about now you are SO GLAD you are not I. See what a favor I'm doing you by writing this blog? Every day you will be joy-jumping for the sheer knowledge that you are WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL PHYSICAL SPECIMEN YOU, as opposed to freaky me!

Hey, guess what? I forgot to ask the doc if I didn't have a FB after all. Wow, that was the main question. I think learning I was missing body parts (not the "learn-something-new-every-day" I was aiming for) kind of distracted me. Maybe I'll call his office tomorrow. I mean, a NORMAL person would ASSUME a clean scan meant there was no FB after all. But I can take no such chances. I need to hear the doc say in plain, doubtless English, You DO NOT have a FB -- PERIOD. Okay, I'm really getting disgusted with my computer tonight. You have no idea how badly it's acting up. It won't let bold and italic go away. Grrr. I also hit a key by error which served to nix all my corrections in one easy second. Bad old computer.

Let it be said (goody, regular font) that my grandparents would be most happy that the surgery is not happening, even though I didn't really have to say, NO!, no surgery. My grandfather, the butter-the-baby one, said, If they told you your head was on backwards, you'd let them cut it off and turn it around. They did not believe in doctors or medical procedures WHATSOEVER. Their disgust was not intended to be disguised. It was perfectly awful and fearful to think of facing my grandparents whenever I acquired some new accoutrement (questionable usage of the word, but, hey, let's live with it, oh!, I got that spelling right, what do you know -- actually, Webster lists two correct spellings and mine is second, the first one is accouterment, which I think sounds really dorky) in the name of improving the piece of work called me. I could only avoid them for so long, I mean my mother ran out of excuses. So I mastered the art of dodge and acquired a few new talents. Like ventriloquism -- had to learn to talk with zipped lips so as not to reveal the braces on my teeth. Had to learn to wear turtlenecks year-round in Florida to conceal the metal bars and chin piece of the back brace. A super challenge was when I had the double bunionectomy. How, at age 16, do you hobble around in fuzzy footies with a walker and escape notice? When you figure that one out, please let me know, even though it's a little late. THAT, I believe, was D-Day. I had to reckon with their fury. Which reminds me, this morning I had an unwelcome "awareness" moment. I confess I did inherit another family gene besides the Scream Gene. And that would be the Bad Temper Gene. Well, is it any wonder, having just read all of the above? And just maybe DTD and I do share that one gene?

I like it when the doctor's receptionist does not staple my debit card receipt to the doctor receipt. The Bible says to not set your affections on things of this world, where moth and rust doth corrupt. Staples rust. They are not pretty. I do not set my affection upon them.

FB-less KEM PS I give my neti pot lots of credit for new, improved sinuses. I want to sing, Oh neti pot, oh neti pot, how lovely is your nozzle (to the tune of Oh, Christmas Tree). Or, to the tune of Oh, Shenandoah, Oh neti pot, I long to hold you. Okay, I'm outta here.