El Serpiente
I’m a little drunk, I’ve been on the go since 2:45am yesterday, now it’s 4:00am and I’m ½ asleep trying to swallow an annoying bit of skin that seems to be stuck in my throat. The act of trying to swallow makes me start to choke and I wake up just a bit more, to the point I start to use my fingers to pull the offending article out, but it seems to be stuck fast.
At this point I’m fully awake and head to the bathroom to have a look at what is going on. This is not the simple act it first seems because I’m not at home, I’m in Spain, at a friend’s house, its pitch dark and as I may have mentioned before I’m a little drunk. On reaching the bathroom I look in the mirror to see just what it is that has been trying to choke me.
I see curled up on the back of my tongue like an evil serpent the largest Uvula I have ever seen and it is firmly attached to me! For those of you who, like me, have never heard of a Uvula, rush to the nearest mirror and check your mouth. That sweet little pink thing dangling at the back of your throat, that is your Uvula, mine was nearly 2” long (5cm) and in the process of try to choke me.
Panic set in, I’m miles from home, in a foreign country, still a little drunk, but no where near as drunk as I was and with a as yet un-named (at that time) piece of my body trying to kill me! At this point I woke Caz.
4 o’clock in the morning, just the time to wake up your wife who has had only 3 hours of sleep in the last 24, with drunken stories of giant snakes attacking you from the inside, but true to form she was marvellous, she calmed me down and advised that as I was not yet dead there was a good chance I would survive until morning. Taking comfort in her words I settled down and tried to sleep, not knowing that she kept watch over me for the rest of the night.
Next morning found me still alive and mulling over a visit to the local doctor, not something I had planed for, but with the still unidentified body part (hear after referred to as the snake) still trying to choke me, the doctor seemed the only option, then our friends advised us that the local pharmacist, who was English, could look at it and give us some advice. So off we all trooped and after a brief attempt at describing the symptom I opened my mouth and introduced her to the snake, at which point she went pale and suggested a trip to the doctors.
Still not happy at going to see a Spanish doctor we then headed to the local internet café and called up NHS direct, to get an online diagnosis, very hard to do when you have no idea what the offending part is called, no surprise that we had no luck. Then it was onto Wikipedia, who at last gave us a name for my new found nemesis, Uvula.
Now we had a name we entered it into Google and at the top of the searches came this.
Swollen Uvula
Help! My uvula is swollen what can I do?
By the time I had read this blog post I was a happy and very relived man, the snake was still there but now I knew I was not going to die I could get on with enjoying my holiday. Reading all the comments on this single blog post makes me think that it must rate as one of the most important posts ever. Thanks Mo.
The picture was taken later that day and shows some Spanish roof tops.
----------------
Now playing: Duran Duran - Union Of The Snake
via FoxyTunes
At this point I’m fully awake and head to the bathroom to have a look at what is going on. This is not the simple act it first seems because I’m not at home, I’m in Spain, at a friend’s house, its pitch dark and as I may have mentioned before I’m a little drunk. On reaching the bathroom I look in the mirror to see just what it is that has been trying to choke me.
I see curled up on the back of my tongue like an evil serpent the largest Uvula I have ever seen and it is firmly attached to me! For those of you who, like me, have never heard of a Uvula, rush to the nearest mirror and check your mouth. That sweet little pink thing dangling at the back of your throat, that is your Uvula, mine was nearly 2” long (5cm) and in the process of try to choke me.
Panic set in, I’m miles from home, in a foreign country, still a little drunk, but no where near as drunk as I was and with a as yet un-named (at that time) piece of my body trying to kill me! At this point I woke Caz.
4 o’clock in the morning, just the time to wake up your wife who has had only 3 hours of sleep in the last 24, with drunken stories of giant snakes attacking you from the inside, but true to form she was marvellous, she calmed me down and advised that as I was not yet dead there was a good chance I would survive until morning. Taking comfort in her words I settled down and tried to sleep, not knowing that she kept watch over me for the rest of the night.
Next morning found me still alive and mulling over a visit to the local doctor, not something I had planed for, but with the still unidentified body part (hear after referred to as the snake) still trying to choke me, the doctor seemed the only option, then our friends advised us that the local pharmacist, who was English, could look at it and give us some advice. So off we all trooped and after a brief attempt at describing the symptom I opened my mouth and introduced her to the snake, at which point she went pale and suggested a trip to the doctors.
Still not happy at going to see a Spanish doctor we then headed to the local internet café and called up NHS direct, to get an online diagnosis, very hard to do when you have no idea what the offending part is called, no surprise that we had no luck. Then it was onto Wikipedia, who at last gave us a name for my new found nemesis, Uvula.
Now we had a name we entered it into Google and at the top of the searches came this.
Swollen Uvula
Help! My uvula is swollen what can I do?
By the time I had read this blog post I was a happy and very relived man, the snake was still there but now I knew I was not going to die I could get on with enjoying my holiday. Reading all the comments on this single blog post makes me think that it must rate as one of the most important posts ever. Thanks Mo.
The picture was taken later that day and shows some Spanish roof tops.
----------------
Now playing: Duran Duran - Union Of The Snake
via FoxyTunes
Comments
Now I must go look up El Serpiente.
My two kids used to excel at being ill on holiday and then I took over from them! Nothing worse. Hope you enjoyed the rest of your break.
Thank goodness for Bloggy land!