Scoped

There was a chair in the examination room. High backed like in an optometrist's office. But there was no eye chart to read. This was not your normal exam room with an examination table covered in thin easily changed paper.

The door was open. I could see the doctor across the hall at his desk. He was 55-60, tall, thin, curly dark hair. He didn't look up from his desk and acknowledge me. It was weird but would be awkward to wave at him.

I wasn't in a rush. In fact I sat there thinking this was unnecessary. The reason I was there, a sore throat which lasted over 2 months had lessened in severity in the last 3-4 days. Like when you take your car to the mechanic because it's making a sound, but when you get there the sound no longer manifests itself. My throat was not 100% back to normal but it was 1/3 the pain it had been. And a hot spot of pain on one side remained. So I figured I'd go and get it looked at. They might be able to tell me what it was.

The nurse came in with a piece of equipment. A long black thin thing. Flexible. small enough to go up a nostril to take a look around. It had an eyepiece at one end and there was a cable on the side of the eyepiece which plugged into a light source. Flexible fiber optics would light the darkness. She took the scope and put it in a clear tube of liquid attached to the wall. Some sterile fluid I imagine.

The doctor came in and shut the door. He asked me about my issue and I explained what had been going on. What the symptoms were. How long. Etc... He looked in my ears, looked in my mouth with a tongue depressor (I guess "flat stick" is not impressive sounding enough.). He explained the scope, had me look thru it to see how it worked. The end of the scope was prehensile and could curve like a finger to look at the nasal passages and the throat all the while shining a light where it pointed.

The doctor looked up my nose and said the right nostril would work best for the scoping. He sprayed a numbing agent up my nose and said it would take 5 minutes to be ready. He went back to his office and in five minutes returned. He shut the door and told me to hold my head still but I didn't need to incline it. The scope did all the work. He put what I assume was Scope Lube on the end and  began.

I didn't feel it really. I was aware of something going up my nostril and then heading south but it didn't make me jump. I could sort of sense what the scope was doing when in my nostril. When it went down I could tell where it was because I could feel the heat of the light on the sides of my throat. It kind of freaked me out. I got a little panicky in the back of my brain. I was concerned I might get the interior of my throat burned if the scope stayed in any one place too long.

He had me make an EEEEE sound to engage the vocal chords. I did that 2 times. After what might have been a minute or 2 but seemed longer he withdrew the scope.

I felt the need to spit. Pull up a ball of phlegm from deep within my soul and spit it out. That I figure came from the anesthetic being dragged by the probe into my throat. I sat back down and the doctor said he didn't see anything. There was no inflammation; nothing out of the ordinary. He said sometimes there's a weird thing going on with your body for no reason and it goes away for no reason too. No a very satisfying diagnosis, but better than hearing throat cancer or some such.

He gave me a card with his personal office number. If it gets worse call him. If it goes away call him.

As I left and for about the next half hour I was trying to extract the weirdness in my throat by spitting. I wasn't successful and it eventually cleared up on it's own but it was unpleasant and it made me look uncouth.

So an interesting day...