“What did you think of the ENT?” Crankenstein asked when she called on her lunch break.
“He was nice, I guess, but it seemed like he might be a jerk,” I replied. There was nothing in particular I could point to — he’d been perfectly professional and I respected the subtle ways he assisted the resident who performed most of my physical exam — he just seemed like the kind of guy who says “Jump!” and expects the whole world to ask “How high?”
We moved on to other topics but she circled back to it this evening and asked the attending’s name. I told her and she said “I know him. He is kind of an asshole.”
“Isn’t that common with ENTs?” I remarked. Most that I’ve met as a patient fit the same mold: tall, brusque and overconfident; vaguely handsome in a bland soap opera way. If I walked past his office, the private one where patients don’t usually go, I knew there’d be a framed photo of him on the slopes or atop a mountain with an equally generic toothpaste-ad blonde, just as I knew he’d not yet been voted one of our region’s top doctors because there were no cheesy plaques touting the achievement.*
There’s a story I need to share sometime about an ENT I was dragged to as a kid following a string of sore throats, but today’s appointment dredged up enough memories already when the resident had to snake a camera up my nose and down the back of my throat. Though I was fairly forthcoming about my IBD-scarred childhood in an old Cranky post called “Shut Up and Deal,” there are plenty of details I omitted. Some of the most painful would qualify as ‘medical trauma,’ but I find that phrase is so overused online that it’s become almost meaningless, and I prefer not to think of it as ‘trauma’ when ‘unpleasantness’ would suffice.
There were times during those hospitalizations when I received nutrients intravenously or via NG tube. The worst of what happened when I was three, I don’t remember, like the time my mom was physically removed from the room because she couldn’t handle my screams as they committed some atrocity or another. (‘Atrocity’ is a joke; whatever they did was medically necessary.) By eight and nine, my memories were much clearer — except for the cumulative weeks spent in morphine hazes. And so I remember the horrors of the PICC line insertion, a procedure from which my mom fled, and more vividly I recall much unpleasantness involving the placement of NG tubes.
It scarred me enough that for years afterward, I couldn’t look at the screen if NG tubes were shown in movies or on TV shows. In 2014, when an ENT surprised me with a camera up the nose, I was more rattled than I let on. This morning I knew it was a possibility and tried not to think about it. Happily, the resident did such a great job that my physical discomfort was nil. By the end of the appointment I had my LSVT clearance — they have to inspect your vocal cords to rule out non-Parkinson’s causes for speech problems — and the information my GI wanted.**
Later, I relaxed by catching up with the Bradford clan. In “The Bard and the Bod,” aspiring actress Joanie is asked to do a nude scene in a local production. Before making a decision, she essentially holds a family vote, polling her siblings but not their father, Tom, who is busy with his new engagement to Abby (Betty Buckley). Eldest brother David quips “Hey, do me a favor? When you’re done not telling Dad, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know,” and then it’s on to a meeting with the other six.
Middle brother Tommy (the future Bibleman himself) is opposed, causing Joanie to insist “I’m trying to be a serious actress, and a serious actress will do anything to help the role.”
“Well, I bet you Doris Day wouldn’t do it,” Tommy retorts.
“Tommy, if I thought it would help the scene, I’d do the thing on roller-skates,” she continues.
“Yes, surely,” medical student Mary interjects. “But roller-skates don’t exploit the female body.”
There are a few jokes about exposure before Nancy earnestly warns “Joanie, some people, even some liberal people, don’t go for public nudity.”
Tommy eventually storms out. Eight-year-old Nicholas finally speaks, announcing “I’m not mad.”
“Hey, Nicholas, did you understand what this powwow was all about?” Susan, who is resolutely pro-nudity, asks.
“Yeah!” he answers. “Joanie’s going to do porno!”
Eight is Enough was a dramedy, so the more serious implications of Joanie’s ‘public nudity,’ as Nancy called it, later come to the fore. Will Tom accept that his daughters have breasts and free will? I won’t spoil the answer and will end this with another question: Did Bibleman ever wage war against nudity or was he too busy swinging his, uh, sword of the spirit at yentas?
* They charge you a pretty penny for those and Crankenstein refuses to pay up. She won’t even buy the magazines that mention her. I purchased one once, when I saw one of her friends on the cover, and amused myself by finding the name of one of her colleagues and making the obligatory “He’s hardly a top” joke.
** The attending said he looked at my imaging and it’s easy to see where my esophagus is screwed up. Even if the cause goes back to PD or dystonia, the GI is the guy who must tinker with my digestive tract.