Tag: education

Swollen Parotid Gland

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain15 Comments

swollen parotid gland

There is this strange thing that happens to me at the very least 1 time and at the most 4 times per year.  My Parotid glands swell up because there is a blockage and it hurts like a mother effer.  I wouldn’t normally use such profanity, but it really hurts lol.

What is the Parotid gland?  Nobody has ever heard that term, but apparently it’s a saliva gland.  This is where your saliva comes from, well, one of the many glands anyway.  I am not a medical professional or even a student so don’t listen to what I’m about to say if you expect to get an education from this, this is only my assumption based on my experience with this.

So you have these glands that produce your saliva.  They release saliva through veins that run from the gland to the inside of your mouth and it oozes out into your mouth.  If there is a block, your gland fills up with saliva and you can literally push on it and you can feel, and even see saliva squirting out of the inside of your cheek either into your mouth, or on the bathroom mirror depending on the direction of the vein and the position you are facing the mirror.  No joke lol.

When I feel it filling up, I push on it and it releases the saliva which gives me some relief, but sometimes the block is so bad that even pushing on it won’t release the saliva.  This happens to me all the time.  Although, pushing on it really hurts until the saliva squirts out, but then it still hurts, but it does give me some relief for a while until it fills back up.  I try not to think of anything that will make me salivate, but then everything makes me salivate.  I can’t win.  It’s like trying to think about baseball when you have an erection, it doesn’t always work.

About 2 weeks ago I could feel swelling and pain from my Parotid gland and we went to our regular appointment and the doctor gave me some antibiotics which was supposed to help.  The doctor told me that if it doesn’t help then I may need surgery.  When we went back a week later it seemed like it had gotten better because it wasn’t as swollen.  The doctor asked me if I wanted surgery and I said it wasn’t necessary.  Oh boy was I wrong.

Saturday evening the Parotid gland had swollen up again so I pushed on it and the saliva went through the veins, but then got stuck so there was a little bubble with saliva sitting in that vein and it couldn’t exit.  It’s still there.  That one little tiny mistake has given me massive amounts of pain since Saturday night.  I’m not the kind of person who cries when he’s in pain because I am literally always in pain so I’m used to it.  When I broke my arm earlier this year I didn’t cry once.  This swollen Parotid gland and saliva bubble pain is so bad that I want to cry.  I haven’t, but I want to.  Or maybe I’ve just bottled my pain emotion so much that I just want to let it out lol.

So I called the doctor’s office yesterday and they scheduled me to come in today at 11:30 a.m.  The doctor gave me a prescription for Norco as well as 2 antibiotics which he said I don’t take right away, he said to wait for it to get worse.  WORSE?  Holy crap!  I went to Truxton Radiology and had an ultrasound then went back to the doctor’s office to have blood drawn for a test specifically for this problem.  He said I will get a letter in the mail with the information for the surgeon referral which will most likely have the appointment in the letter with an address.

I am ready for this thing to go away.  You have no idea how ready I am lol.  I am just sick and tired of being in pain all the time.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.  If it’s not my curving back which turns out to be scoliosis, then it’s my freakin’ Parotid gland.  I guess that means I’m getting old lol.

Everyone’s a Critic

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I have my own taste in what I watch on TV.  But what I hate is when people tell me stuff like “don’t waste your time on that show” or “OMG that is so lame, you are such a pussy for watching that”.  You know what.  Screw that.  I don’t give a crap what people have to tell me about how they feel about the shows I like.  I don’t go around telling people that they shouldn’t be watching the stuff they watch.  Jeez dude, mind your own business.

I’ll give you an example.  OK, I like shows like Buffy and Charmed but a lot of people will say that those shows are targeted for girls.  No they’re not!  They are targeted to anyone who likes that world.  I just so happen to be that type of person.  I don’t care if it’s all men burping and farting, as long as they are casting spells and vanquishing demons or slaying vampires, that’s all I care about.

Some people will say “oh well that’s not very educational now is it?  I just watch the home decorating shows and you know, educational programming like the Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel (TLC) and the History Channel.  You know, you could be a little more educated if you stop watching those TV shows of yours”.  You know what, let me tell you something about education.  Shove your education up your pie hole =)) I watch those things too.  I watch the History channel and Discovery once in a while, if it’s interesting to me.  I don’t base my whole existence on that crap because they aren’t fantasy.  I would much rather live in the fantasy world because it’s more interesting.

Listen, I have ADD, you know what that means?  It means if I don’t give a crap about something then I’m not going to pay any attention and I’m not going to remember 1 thing you told me about any of it.  I may be sitting there, staring at the screen for an hour but I can guarantee you that I won’t hear 1 word being said.  And at the very end you can quiz me on it and I’ll tell you the same thing everyone time.  “Huh?  What?  Oh I’m sorry, I wasn’t even paying attention.”

If you ask me anything about Smallville, Supernatural, Heroes, Buffy, Charmed or any of the other many shows that I watch, I will have so much information that you will be like omg I can’t believe you remembered that but yet you can’t remember anything that you just saw in the last hour that I made you watch on the History channel.

Sorry, it’s how I roll.