After three weeks of partial deafness, basically three weeks of gratuitous self-pitying partial deafness, the nightmare is over. I can hear again. The day I was beginning to think would never come is here. And it’s no thanks to the medics.
After two weeks of depressing, literally depressing, deafness, I then developed an infection which needed to be treated with antibiotics. The antibiotics did their job but the deafness remained. Today I went for my ‘ear irrigation’, after which normality would be returned. Fat chance.
The young nurse said that as I had been on antibiotics, she could not administer irrigation. I would have to wait six weeks. I was crestfallen. As low as I have been for a very long time, I went home, with the full intention of hibernation for at least six weeks. But I was never going to wait six weeks.
We found the little ear-squirter that came with the Oetex kit and shot warm water into my affected ear. A surprising amount of debris appeared. We did it a few more times, with the same success, and all at once I realised I could hear again. It was as good a feeling as I have experienced for yonks, as we say in Bristol.
There are of course risks in ignoring medical advice. I could easily re-infect the offending lughole (the first time I ever written the word lughole) but believe me, the effect the blockage was having on my mental health was serious. I was at my wit’s end.
Now the world is one big SSSSSSSSS. My partner who needed to shout at me to make herself heard now just needs to talk. I no longer need to have the radio on full blast. I can watch TV without subtitles. The world is my lobster.
Whoever thought a blocked ear could cause so much stress and hassle? Well, I did because I’ve had blocked ears before and hated the feeling more than words can say. Yet now I am able to re-engage with the world, it feels like it was almost worth it feeling shit in order to feel this good.
If now you talk to me and I appear to ignore you, it’s because I really mean it. No pretending now.
