Sometimes life just hands you a joke…

I went to Fargo yesterday to consult with an ENT my primary care physician referred me to.

Cool side note: my grandfather, who I never met due to him dying before I was born, was an EENT back in the barely post-pioneer days in Oklahoma, when they still had the first “E.” What’s really cool was, decades ago I went to a dentist in Norman, Oklahoma who got to maundering about his first contact with the medical profession, who turned out to be – my grandfather!

I’ve been having a problem with my sinuses since mid-December when I first contracted a strep infection, then went through two courses of antibiotics, and quit a driving job because the damn sinuses just wouldn’t clear up! I cough and sneeze frequently, and produce… never mind you get the picture.

It’s not that it’s horribly painful, it’s that it never goes away. Let me put it this way, if the doc had said, “We’ve got to saw off the front of your skull with a rusty hacksaw and blast out your sinuses with a fire hose,” – I’d have gone for it.

Soooo, I show up for my appointment and the doc turns out to be a Lithuanian hippie.

Now as it happens, I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Lithuania with my wife and son. My daughter’s middle name is from out late dear friend Ilona Daukene.

Pleasant chit-chat with the doc, a thorough examination of my head bone cavities, and he writes me a prescription for antibiotics, various expectorants, and nose sprays loaded with steroids. I feel better already, but I won’t be passing any drug tests for the next month or so…

So of course, because I know a few words in Lithuanian, I was able to thank the doc in his native language.

“Thank you” in Lithuanian, is “Atchoo!”