Writing from the pain

Plucking my unibrow into its proper dichotomous form was cake compared to the slug of fluid I sucked out of my ear just hours before. Here is a link to cauliflower ear:

http://rlbatesmd.blogspot.com/2007/09/cauliflower-ear.html

I had a minor version of it, like someone had stuck a couple of peas just under the outer lip of my damn ear. It often happens during wrestling, or as in this case, Jujitsu. The skin gets separated from the cartilage and a bubble of fluid forms beneath it. If untreated, the cartilage beneath the herniated skin dies, since the skin is how the cartilage receives its nutrients. Dead cartilage shrivels up and becomes hard as regular bone and looks pretty funny. And I already look pretty funny. So I went to Justin’s house, stood in front of the mirror, and turned on all the lights. Justin tossed a syringe into the sink.

“Just stick it in and suck.”

I leaned in close. I would do this on my own. Mostly on the advice of Bon, my large Korean instructor who nearly beat up the last person who helped him with his cauliflower ear.

Just when I’m gathering up the courage to poke my ear, the needle right there, I mean *on* the skin, Justin peers into the mirror and shouts that I have wolverine ears. This means that I have long, wispy, nearly transparent hairs emanating from the rims of my ears, like a wolverine I suppose. You can’t really see them unless you get really close, and turn the lights way up. Which is what I was doing.

“Dude, I’m getting you some tweezers.”

“Shut up. Leave me the fuck alone.”

“You’re not going to get any chicks with wolverine ears dude.”

“I’d rather have wolverine ears than cauliflower ears.”

“But Duuude-"

“Shut up means no talking, as in no sound out of your face!”

I began to stick my ear with the syringe. I cringed a lot. It went in smoothly, after a small pinch of pain. I heard a small “tick” and then another “tick” as the needle penetrated cartilage. I drew out enough liquid to get up to the “1” mark on the needle. It was reddish, pale stuff that seemed a bit thinner than blood.

“Plasma!” Justin hooted. “That’s a syringe full of plasma!”

I’m still not sure how we got around to the fact that I had a unibrow. Anyway, my ear hurts, and so I wrote about it.