I’ve been fighting against seeing a doctor since my insurance doesn’t work here. But after about a week of near-sleepless nights and the inability to breathe, Matthias finally prevailed upon me to let him call a doctor and at least ask how much it would cost.

The last ten days, I’ve only been making it through on prayers alone. And God’s been good to me, allowing me to get a little bit of coughless sleep. To me it’s miraculous.

But as this thing wasn’t getting any better, I figured I’d better go to the doctor. And since Matthias found a place that would allow me to come in and pay 25 Euro cash, I figured I’d give it a shot. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise, and I might have died, or had my lungs removed.

I’ve got an infected larynx. How in the world? That explains why I can’t breathe and I can barely talk. It’s not like I’ve been dragging my voicebox behind the bus on the string, so I still can’t figure out how I got sick.

Now, the healthcare system is a little different here. I know that, although I’m not going to go into the differences, other than it’s socialized, or something. The decorations were sparse. It wasn’t one of those dressed-up and happy doctor’s offices you find in Utah. The waiting room was packed with people, and we were lucky to get a seat. When we entered the room, Matthias turned to me and said, “Oh great, this looks like an opportunity for you to pick up more diseases.”

After a wait that was much shorter than I expected, thanks to Matthias’ foresight in calling ahead and getting me an appointment, I was ushered into an examination room with another patient.

Great, I thought. Looks like we get joint examinations, too. I was hoping the other patient had something interesting to show the doctor, when the other patient’s friend came in and got her. Guess she had misheard and thought she was next instead of me.

Phew. That just left Matthias and I to observe what would come next: the Alien Abduction.

Matthias explained my symptoms and the doctor ushered me into the patient chair. I looked to my left. All the tools in the stand looked scarily too much like dentist tools, if your dentist also happened to abduct people in his UFO on the weekends. There were wands and probes and things that I could only imagine were saws meant for ripping open my throat to get a better look at the what might be bothering me.

The first thing he did was to get out his third-longest pair of tweezers. Now these were the kind of tweezers that have the finger holes like those found in scissors, then there was the tweezing end, but where a normal pair of tweezers stopped, this pair just kept going, ending in four-inch spikes. The doctor put cotton in this and before I could cry out that he had the wrong person, he shoved the tweezers up my nose.

Then the doctor swore in German and left the room. I don’t understand many words, but that is one word that I’ve heard often enough to figure out what it means.

Ever see that part in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger pulls the orb out of his nose. Yeah, it was kind of like that. I was just waiting for the doctor to come back and remove the memory orb so that the Martian police could no longer track me.

The doctor came back, grabbed a little gun with a very long barrel in one hand. “Open wide,” he said, taking a tissue in the other hand. “Now stick out your tongue.” I stuck out my tongue, and he caught it as if it were a bug. Then he shoved the gun down my poor, aching throat.

I guess there was a camera on the other end of the gun. But my throat was a little shy and didn’t want to be in the picture.

“Say ‘hee.’” I guess he didn’t have any furry little stuffed animals to make my throat smile. And maybe doctors just make you say ‘hee’ here instead of ‘ah.’

“Ghkee,” I said, though it mostly came out like a gagging noise. I think it took him five minutes to remove the gun from my throat, even though I only think it was in there a little more than five seconds.

Then he repeated the process, and didn’t even offer me a sucker when I left. Though I did get plenty of antibiotics and a prescription for steroids. Not that I need steroids. Coughing is a great work out for the abs. I’m more in shape than I’ve been in months!

Before he left, he put the happy tweezers up my nose again and retrieved the cotton.

“Does it feel better?”

Of course it feels better now that you’ve pulled that crazy piece of cotton out of my nasal cavity. I didn’t say that, though. I said, “Thanks.” And I meant it. This guy was doing me a big favor by giving me a very good price for his services.

So now I’m doped up and still coughing. I’m hoping my larynx gets better so I can actually speak again someday. I would also like a full night of sleeping, if possible.

After the UFO set me back down, I went to CD City and bought a CD of a goth metal band from the Netherlands. They’re called Within Temptation, and their songs are pretty cool. After what I’d been through, I bought a pastry, too. I’ll have to say that I’m enjoying the CD more. It’s kind of hard to play music on a pastry.