October 8, 2008

• The Nose Knows

  So…my local otolaryngologist (ear nose and throat doc to you plebes) called me up and asked if I could come up to his office and help with a fine needle aspiration.

  Seeing as I was just cruising for internet porn I was happy to oblige.

  “This is material from a lesion in the right supraclavicular fossa” he says, squirting a little whitish material out of a syringe and onto one of my glass slides.

  “It’s an epidermal cyst” I say.

  “How can you tell that?  You haven’t even looked under the microscope.” he exclaims.

  My reply…”Easy.”

  “I can smell it from here.”

  Next to rotting bodies and gas gangrene, epidermal cysts rank as the most  malodorous of pathologic entities.  Imagine soaking a mold impregnated sponge with concentrated vinegar and you have some remote idea.

  And in other Nose News…

  It is bad enough when one reaches the age where one must trim one’s nose hairs but extracting a Grey Nose Hair is over the top.

  • 5:57 pm
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