nobody asked…

Twenty-eight was a wonderful age. Being recently stripped of any meaningful assets by divorce, my pockets were usually empty, but I had enough to have fun and enjoy life without developing any seriously expensive habits. Just enough to get by on. One end of my apartment was a glass wall that framed the balcony, giving a view of a large wooded city park. It had the feel of living outdoors. I had friends who had been good to me, a good job with a promising future in a Fortune 50 company, a decent component stereo system with an excellent colletion of LPs, made to sound better than it was by the absence of sound absorbing and reflecting furniture. I had none. An old card table and four folding chairs, home-made shelves for the stereo equipment, a roll-up mattress on the floor for sleep and other activities. That was it. Life was good.

Sipping my morning wakeup coffee and having the first glorious cigarette of the day, it slowly seeped into my emerging consciousness that something was not quite right. My mouth and tongue felt … funny. Hard to describe, but just … different. Oh, well, it was 6:30 in the damn morning. Another coffee and cigarette and it will be fine.

I shuffled/stumbled to the bathroom for my daily 4S ritual (for those not in the know, that is shit, shave, shower, and shampoo), stopping to check my mouth in the mirror. “HOLY SHIT!” The only other time I have waked up that fast was when the dog jumped on me in bed and landed squarely on my balls. Retreiving a flashlight from a kitchen drawer, I gave closer inspection. “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?”

My tongue was black and … gulp … hairy looking. Mouth wash didn’t help. Brushing didn’t help. There was no pain or uncomfortable feeling. Just this god-awful tongue that was black, hairy, and slightly swollen. On the way to work my mind was in overdrive. After talking out loud to myself in the car, I decided the tongue was not swollen enough to affect my speech noticeably. Nevertheless, it might be a good idea to lie low today and not interact with any more folks than necessary.

Good, my calendar showed no meetings, no activities requiring face-to-face interaction with normal-tongued people. Damn! I had already started thinking of myself as abnormal. My first appointment was the next morning when I was to have a routine follow-up session with a dermatologist who was treating my recent flare-up of latent teenage acne. All day and all night, all I could think of was my tongue, my black hairy tongue. I had carefully thought it through and decided that the best thing to do would be to vanish and move to the wilderness, far removed from people, stay there as long as I could stand it, and then end my miserable existence. Oh, what a difference a day makes — from an extreme of life is good to the decision to end it all.

After taking a close look, the dermatologist said everything looked good, and that he would not need to see me again unless there was a recurrence. He must have sensed that I was not my usual jovial self and asked if there was anything else on my mind that he might help with.

“Well, I’ve got… it’s hard to talk about… it’s not a skin thing, so maybe I shouldn’t…”

“Nonsense. I was in General Practice before specializing. Now, what is it?”

“Well, I’ve got a… my tongue is black and … swollen … and hairy looking.”

“Let’s have a look.” He peered into my gaping mouth, probing with light and tongue depressor and cotton swab. Then he asked if I had any more of the tetracycline I had been taking for acne. I told him yes, that I had several left, plus a refill on the prescription; he told me to take no more of it, now or ever.

“Well, OK, but what about my tongue?”

“It has a long medical name (lingua villosa nigra), but most doctors just refer to it as black hairy tongue. One of the known causes is antibiotics, like the tetracycline you’ve been taking. The normal bacteria that live in the mouth and aid the start of the digestive process get out of control and the tongue turns dark. The papillae, the little projections on the tongue, turn dark and stand up rather than lying smooth and flat.”

“You mean it’s not cancer?How do I get rid of it?”

Smiling, but not quite chuckling, he said, ” No, nothing like that. It is a somewhat disgusting, but harmless and temporary condition. Just quit taking the tetracycline. You should notice a difference in a couple of days and be back to normal within a week. If you have a different experience, give me a call or drop by.”

As the doctor promised, I noticed a difference in the first couple of days and it was all gone a couple of days after that. With everything back to normal, I could finally talk about it with my close friends. Some were grossed out. Mostly we laughed about it. Once again, life was good.