About six months ago, my best friend from sixth grade and I decided that come May, we would both get in a car, drive south, and escape our lives for a week. We discussed the idea of the road trip at length - how I would play Louise to her Thelma, how we could save on gas, what we should take with us, et cetera. And finally, after much anticipation, May 17 arrived. And I was not ready. But after sleeping late and packing at the last minute, Michelle, a.k.a. Thelma, and I hit the road. And made it all the way to The Farm in Ross, about fifteen miles from my apartment, before I felt a weird tingling in my left cheek. Then I realized had suddenly become quite swollen. I pulled over and looked in the mirror, only to find my cheek about twice its normal size and my ear sticking straight out a la Will Smith. I'd been eating some Turtle flavored Chex mix and immediately suspected that I had stumbled onto a previously unknown allergy. Fearing that I would never manage to escape the steely grip of Oxford, let alone Butler County, I listened to Michelle and agreed that we should turn around and get my magically expanding cheek checked out. She dropped me off at McCullough-Hyde's front entrance and went to park the lovely Saturn Ion we'd rented for the week. When I got to the admitting desk, the woman behind it looked at me boredly and said, "What can we do for you today?" "Well," I said, "About half an hour ago, my cheek blew up to twice its normal size." As I said this, I moved my hair, which had been camouflaging the symptom, aside. Her eyes widened and she said hastily, "Have a seat and we'll have someone look at you as soon as we can." I laughed as I did so.
A few minutes later, I was called back to triage and then finally given a curtained off "room." Miraculously, my cheek started to go down in size. The doctor finally appeared and I showed her the bag of Turtle-flavored Chex Mix that I thought perhaps I'd had an allergic reaction to.
The doctor, however, told us she suspected a stone in my salivary gland, something neither one of us had ever heard of. The stone was blocking my saliva's exit into my mouth, and so it was filling up my cheek instead. This explained the oddly dry sensation around my left molars. The doctor gave me a prescription for an antibiotic in case infection should arise and sent us on our way. I told her we were attempting to drive the first leg of a road trip and reach Nashville that night, and she said that it should be fine, since we'd be on interstates most of the way and there were plenty of emergency rooms along our route should things worsen. And so off we went on our grand adventure.
