The other day, I said something incredibly crass, absurdly stupid and more than slightly offensive, I wager. No change there, then, I hear you say, but in my world tiny things that shouldn’t matter, really do. The ear infection I currently have feels like the worst thing in the world.
An ear infection? Really? Yes, really. I am not taking the piss – or should it be pus, given the diagnosis I received yesterday – but my infection has taken over my entire life and is affecting everything I do.
What I thought was merely a blocked ear has turned into an ear infection. The wax that caused my deafness has been replaced by – look away if you are about to eat or have just eaten – pus. The prescribing pharmacist who examined me yesterday – you don’t get to see actual doctors up our way – said my ear was so badly infected she couldn’t even see into it. But it’s not so much the pain that is getting me down, although it undoubtedly is, it’s being deaf and so semi-detached from the rest of the world.
A week ago yesterday, I got through my food bank stint and later went out for a few beers. The first bit was awful since I was basically lip-reading and conscious that I might be shouting confidential information across the room. The second was better – there was a drink involved, so it had to be – but not being able to hear properly just feels awful. I’m missing out on words, sometimes whole lines of conversation. It feels like I have a clump of papier-mâché in and around my left ear and it’s making my ability to concentrate, grim at the best of times, even worse than usual.
It also feels like it’s never going to go away, that I will be stuck with this forever. I am squirting antibiotics into my ear three times a day, with so far zero sense of improvement. If anything, the liquid going into my ear appears to be making me more deaf, not less. This is the worst thing in the world, isn’t it?
Of course, it isn’t the worst thing in the world. Anyone with something genuinely serious that’s wrong with them will have little pity and quite right too. If you’re in hospital, having life-saving surgery, to read me whingeing about a bloody ear problem, you must think me quite pitiful. And you’d be right.
I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t want to see anyone. Snowflake that I am becoming, I quickly became tired of people saying, ‘Pardon?’ Now I’m at the stage of not wanting to see people because of that, ‘Sorry, I can’t hear very well!’ ‘SORRY? HA HA HA’ conversation.
Crass, stupid and offensive it may be that I am wallowing in a pool of self-pity about an ear infection, but trust me it’s horrible and definitely something I would wish on my worst enemy. (Yes, you read it right. I would wish it on my worst enemy. You don’t think I’d wish them well, would you?)
By all means take the piss but if you could also take the pus, I’d be a happy man.
