Swass: A Detailed Explanation in Layman's Terms

December 3, 2007

In two weeks, Jared will be a chiropractor. It's been a long, long road--about eight years total--and we're both ready for next Saturday's graduation. And when we move, you'd better believe that I'm having our mail forwarded to Dr. and Mrs. Lawson. Sure, maybe it's a little pretentious, but I want people to be confused when packages get delivered to Dr. Lawson's double-wide trailer and when Dr. Lawson registers his 1989 Chevy Blazer in a new state.

You see, we have a lot of student loan debt to take care of before we can even think about considering a discussion of living the high life. And even then, I doubt it will ever happen. Jared and I both love recreation far too much--boating, skiing, rock climbing, nose picking, pie eating--we love it all. And I think we both agree that we'd rather work three-and-a-half days a week and make ends meet than work six days a week and drive a Lexus.

So we're not going to get rich off of this chiropractic thing, and that's totally fine. But you'd be totally off the mark if you think we haven't gained anything from this experience. Jared has gained the ability to use very technical sounding words and terms, and I've gained the highly-coveted ability to tune him out.

Jared will be like, "I'm stressed out. I think my patient might have a slight bulge of the L4 disc brought on by the severe calcification of the spinus process and some type of ballistic movement. We're going to have to do an MRI to rule out any spondelostethis or arthropothies, and I'm not sure that their insurance will cover it."

And I'm like, "That's nice honey."

But, for all of the technical terms that my husband throws into our lunchtime conversations, he uses a lot of less technical speak as well.

For example, "Oh Amy, I wish this weather would cool down. This swass is just killing me."

I bet you don't know what "swass" is--actually, of course you don't, it's a Lawson original. Well, let me give you a clue. The "sw" stands for sweaty, and I think you're very capable of figuring out the rest. Jared also suffers from "swalls" and "swenis" on a fairly regular basis. And being the enthusiastic professional that he is, Jared gave me a long, detailed explanation of the reason why swenis and swalls never occur independently. Apparently, they only happen together--a phenomenon that Jared likes to refer to as "the swackage."

So, if you suffer from excessive swarm-pits or sweet, please don't be afraid to discuss it with your doctor. Because chances are, she deals with her own rockin' case of swajango. Trust me, she'll totally understand.