Freaky voo-doo accident or bummer collagen mishap?

Last Friday I was out sick, not with the cold but because -- get this -- my top lip was three times the size it usually is. I went to the Doctor and he said -- I am so not kidding -- "Maybe you bit it."

Bit it?

Like, my mouth is horribly disfigured now after a savage moment earlier today, when I tried to eat my face?

I'm not one of those people who think all doctors are quacks. But I'm old enough now to think that policemen, sports heroes and Hollywood heart throbs look like babies. And along with that rite of passage, I'm allowed to think that some doctors are quacks. And that guy was a quack.

He even looked like a duck.

I arranged the appointment; waited all morning to be seen, all the while afraid I was having an allergic reaction that would close my throat at any minute; PARADED MY DISFIGURED FACE IN PUBLIC while getting to his office, made babies cry in the waiting room, obediently tilted my head back while his latexed fingers stretched out my mouth the same way people do BEFORE THEY BUY A HORSE, and HE THINKS I BIT IT?

For fuck's sake!

He didn't even prescribe medication or tell me to put ice on it or anything. Granted, by the time he saw me, most of the swelling had gone down anyway. But then he had the nerve to tell me that I looked fine and sometimes people imagine that a body part looks swollen because it feels weird, and the brain makes your eyes think it looks different than it usually does.

He had a point, there. I'm sure I looked perfectly natural if I had just, say, COMPLETELY BOTCHED A DO-IT-YOURSELF COLLAGEN INJECTION.

Anyway, I got home from the doctor's office and my good friend was aghast that the doctor gave no medical advice other than to "keep an eye on it." I refrained from telling him that my eye was already on it, along with my nose and part of my forehead, but I digress. Anyway, my friend recommended applying a warm salt water compress for an hour, followed by a warm milk compress for a half hour. I asked if I should apply a spaghetti-o face mask after that, but he told me to quit being difficult and go do it.

I'll be damned, but worked. He swears that there are amazing enzymes in milk that have healing powers. Now I believe him. Why didn't my quack doctor know this?

And, for the record, I did not bite it. It was probably just a weird allergic reaction to something I ate. I did have cod for the first time in years that night. Either that, or my doctor's other theory, which was that an invisible cod bone from my boneless cod fillet punctured my lip, causing a chain of chemical reactions that resulted in a fat lip. I actually think the real reason it happened was because someone practicing black magic in a far off land made a voo-doo doll of someone who looked sort of like me, and the cosmic waves veered off track when a freak explosion on the surface of the sun emitted strong magnetic forces, sending the voo-doo vibes straight to my lip in Boston.

Whatever.