Uvula Introduction | Tawn Jewkes

“Mom, it smells bad in here. I’m not that sick.” I didn’t want to be there. I hate needles. I hate pills. I hate sick people, but most all, I hate the smell and the always way-too-happy doctors. All doctors are always the same. Always have a smile on their face. Even if you were dying, they would still be smiling. I hate going to the doctor’s office.

On this particular visit though, the doctor told me I was “special.”

“Tawn?” the nurse announced in the waiting room.

“Great,” I thought, “now everybody knows my name too…stupid nurse.”

“So what are you here for?” she asked me.

“Because I’m sick…duh!” I thought to myself, but my mom shot me a warning look so I put on my “big girl face” and said politely, “Because I’m sick.”

“Ok, the doctor will be right with you Tawn.”

I sat quietly and waited impatiently for the doctor to knock on the door. He never did though. He just walked in. I hate when they do that. He walked over the counter and grabbed all his doctor “tools.” As if the room didn’t already smell like rubbing alcohol, he cleaned every instrument over there. He finally picked up a popsicle stick—tongue depressor as he called it—and said, “Open wide and say awww!”

“Awww…”

The doctor chuckled before proceeding to say, “Has anyone ever told you that you are special?”

“Only my mom,” I replied.

“Well, you have something that most people don’t have. Your uvula—the “hangy down thing” in the back of your throat is unusual. See, most people just have an oval shape. You have an upside down heart. It splits into two. Here’s a mirror, see for yourself.”

I looked deep inside my mouth and sure enough, there it was, the upside down heart.

“COOL!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know that everybody’s doesn’t look like that! I thought it was just normal.”

“Just for being so special, you get an extra sticker and another sucker to eat when you get better,” the jolly doctor nearly shouted to me with a smile on his face of course.

Ever since that day I have to show everybody my “hangy down thing.” Instead of thinking of it as a deformity, I use it as a tool. It sometimes is a good awkward moment filler in a conversation because all I have to say to get a conversation going again is, “I bet my uvula is better than your uvula!” Although people sometimes look at me funny at first, everybody always ends up wishing they had a uvula as “special” as mine too.

So why do I hate doctor’s so bad if this doctor showed me something I never knew about myself before? Well, the next question he asked me with a big grin on his face was, “So are you ready for your strep throat shot now?”