Just Swell

Last Wednesday I woke up in my normal blind fog, rolled out of bed and onto the floor, reaching desperately to silence the alarm clock from hell that is not so much next to my bed as it is in the other room so I will actually have to get up. Damn my clever tricks on my morning self.

But anyway, it seems like a normal day, when I notice that my mouth feels weird. Like, umm, thick. Which is odd, y'know?

My tongue seems to have swelled during the night. Nothing too serious, just about 1.5 its normal size. I'm somewhat concerned, seeing as one's tongue does not change size on of its own accord without some reason, but I figure it will go away eventually. I continue on with my day.

By dinner, it has grown even more and it feels like my entire mouth is burned, like I just gulped down three cups of steaming hot coffee and rolled it around to retain the flavor. It freakin' hurts. But there's not really much I can do, besides wonder what on earth I could have possibly done to warrant such a reaction.

Thursday rolls around and now The Tongue (as I imagine it being called) is affecting my speech. For serious, it sounds like I'm talking around a mouthful of marbles. As the day progresses, in addition to talking like I recently received a sharp blow to the head, I keep biting The Tongue, as it is now too large to avoid my teeth, in their normal setting.

When I get home from work (which was hideous: "Goo-mooorr-niegh, hooo caa I hep yoou?" "Excuse me?" "Sigh.") to alleviate the pain from the burning sensation as well as all the bites I bust out some of that throat numbing medication on The Tongue, thinking any medicine is good medicine, right? Foolish Jason, if The Tongue goes numb, you won't know when you're biting it all the time. And your speech will be so slurred you'll sound drunk without even trying. By this point I am practically drooling and I feel as though my head has become incredibly large.

This is not my beautiful life.

By that night, though, the numbing had worn off and I made it through the night out without severe incident, unless you count Devon laughing at me every time I tried to speak. Which, you know, she does normally anyway, so yeah. And I managed to get some alcohol into my system, which numbed everything in a very nice way that didn't seem to increase the number of tongue bitings per minute. So rock. (And I got to see Sean do a perfect karaoke rendition of No Scrubs that will forever live on in my mind and in the hearts of the drunken cowgirls at the table next to us. Even the worst days have their high points.)

By Saturday the whole thing was over and the tongue was back to mere lowercase status. Why did such a weird thing happen to me? Allergic reaction? Dental issues? Voodoo curse from my arch-nemesis? I guess it'll just be a mystery for the ages.