Poked And Prodded

So I probably mentioned a while back that I had an ear infection. Well, I still have it, although it is better. Did you know that even with the use of antibiotics it is quite common for ear infections to last up to 6 weeks?

I have been feeling fine and perfectly functional apart from the occasional bout of tottering (my balance is off.) I just pretend I’m drunk at 10AM, makes me feel like a bad ass rock star. I am also experiencing frequent bouts of deafness. It’s not really deafness so much as mishearing things like when people mishear song lyrics and think The Beatles Eight Days A Week goes :

‘ 8 days, Louise. I love you’

instead of

‘8 days a week. I love you.’

or go for

‘Blackbirds singing in my bed at night’

instead of

‘Blackbird singing in the dead of night’

Misheard lyrics are actually called mondegreens.

These two are absolutely priceless.

From Creedence’s Bad Moon Rising comes

‘There’s a bathroom on the right’

instead of

‘there’s a bad moon on the rise.’

and from Ghostbusters

‘Who ya gonna call?
Those bastards.’

Love it!

So my friend, Mel said to me. ‘I think you should go to the doctor about your hearing. I just asked you if you wanted to grab some lunch and you told me it was quarter past two.’ She’s right. I am mishearing things. So I went to see the doc.

* WARNING* The rest of this post may refer excessively to the word wax. So for the faint -hearted or the wax-phobic I suggest you stop reading right about here ^. However, if you have a wax-fetish like the man I saw on the Discovery Channel who liked to eat his girlfriend’s earwax as a form of foreplay (beyond disgusting,) please proceed.

My doctor is a woman and she’s very nice. Caring, concerned, genteel. But mention the word earwax and she gets a sadistic look in her eyes and a determined pucker to her lips. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ she says as she snaps on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘I’m not sure?’ I reply wishing the receptionist would page her or there would be an emergency in the waiting room so I could make a hasty exit.

‘I’m thinking it’s a nice day for it,’ she goes on, delving into her steriliser.
‘A nice day for what?’ I stammer, hoping she’s going to say a walk in the park or a hot chocolate with marshmallows.

‘For syringing,’ she says. Towering above me in an evil, syringe-wielding silhouette.

I won’t be overly specific, but for those of you who’ve never had your ear syringed it involves pumping warm water into the ear canal and then sucking it back out again along with the dreaded wax. Sounds simple enough and possibly pleasant but let me tell you if your ear is in any way tender as mine was, pleasant is not the word that comes to mind.

‘Can’t we wait?’ I pleaded. ‘At least until my ear hurts less.’
‘Your ear is hurting because of the wax. We have to remove it.’

She flexed her syringe arm and told me to hold on to the arms of the chair. Now there are two things you don’t want your doctor to say. One is : ‘I have something to tell you. I think you should sit down.’ Followed very closely by ‘Hold on to the arms of the chair.’

She planted one foot firmly in front of the other, leaning slightly on an angle as if balancing while going around the corner in a bus, and began to syringe.

She syringed.

I closed my eyes tight and pretended I was walking through a waterfall.

She grunted.

I clenched my teeth and held my breath.

She syringed again.

I pretended the warm water running down my neck and onto my white T-shirt didn’t contain dead skin cells and wax.

She syringed once more.

Holy shit, I thought. Imagining myself lying back and thinking of England.

And then it was over.

I can’t say I felt better immediately but over the weekend my hearing and the pain has gradually improved. It’s good to feel somewhat normal but I will miss those hilarious mondegreens.

‘It’s been a hard day’s night
I should be sleeping with a hog.’

Aaaah, good times. No one writes lyrics like that anymore!