So yesterday morning, I wake up, at quarter to 8 for school. Then I fell back to sleep.
But around, ohh... 10 or so, I woke up again...
but something's a little different. What *exactly* was it?
What could it have been?
Oh yes, that's it... I couldn't HEAR out of my left ear. Hoo-fucking-ray!!
I got up out of bed and desperately, yet still carefully and skillfully tried to swab whatever the hell the problem was out... thinking maybe for some reason there just a thin veneer of wax to pierce and everything would be fine. I'd been hoping that I could just do this myself and be done with it. Then I could wander away to my afternoon class... the first class of some kind of psych, with one of my more favourite teachers, Mista Tom "da Man, da" Hanrahan.
However, it was not to be.
So I came here, to the internet, to find the location of the North Bay General Hospital. I was relatively sure it would have an emergency ward, I mean, North Bay is kind of small, but shouldn't be that small.
I found it after a touch of searching, and it was right about where I thought it was. One of the buildings, anyhow. I took the bus to it, it stopped right outside one of the buildings. I was under the impression that it would all be in one building, but I was wrong. So after some more walking, I found the right place, and I found the emergency room.
I was a little apprehensive to actually register my complaint. I'm just always hesitant to complain about physical things to doctor types, should they for some reason either not take me seriously or the condition pan out to be nothing and have me waste their time. I would change my tune about that second part a bit later.
So after a decision which at that part was purely academic, I sat down and tried to explain my problem to the nurse at the desk. At first I told her how I didn't know if this exactly *was* a problem for the emergency room, and if that she had another suggestion I'd be glad to hear it. She didn't. She took my info, wrote it on a little sheet of transfer paper, and sent me to the next little booth thing. The nurse in the second booth took my personal information in a rather clumsy manner, having to erase and start all over again at one point. Super-dee-duper. It didn't help much that I had to ask what every other question was because I couldn't HEAR very well. I asked her as well if this was an emergency room matter, because at that point I wasn't actually experiencing any major pain, just a lot of discomfort. After finishing everything up, she told me that I could go to a walk-in clinic later, and considering the crowd in the waiting room I had passed through, that seemed like a pretty good idea. I asked her if that actually would be a better option, either for them or for me, or both. That was when she got snippy with me. She told me that she couldn't make that decision for me, and that I should consider it, and that if I was going to leave, to come back and sign a release form before I left. Well, I had been considering leaving right there, and contemplated signing it before even leaving her station. I mean, I did still have a class I could make that afternoon. That, however, was when she came down on me saying, "Look, you're NOT going to leave after JUST filling out all those forms, OKAY?!" I was afraid and agreed and went to sit down.
Funny thing about North Bay... not a lot of good looking people. A lot of average ones... a lot of ugly ones... not a lot of good looking people. And you know, if you think about it, good looking people sort of help out your day in ways you don't always realize. Having an attractive person to look at in a boring situation can be good and break the monotony sometimes.
It made sense that the not-many-good-looking-people rule should apply to the waiting room too. There was a wonderful cross-section of the population otherwise... all shapes, sizes and ages, but just not an equal representation in attractiveness.
I settled into a black plastic seat. There were 4 lines of them, against the walls and in the middle of the room back to back. Fine. I sat down and looked around a little. A sign on the wall on a black wipe board said the wait for non-emergency patients in the emergency room was 3-4 hours. It was a fresh sign, and written in a way that the numbers 3-4 could be changed accordingly to whatever the wait was.
3-4 hours. Well, that was about typical. Hell, I waited a lot longer last time I was in one, when I scratched my eye... and that was more serious than this. Maybe North Bay wasn't so bad. Then I saw a printed paper sign that said to please be patient and bear with them, they only ever had one doctor on duty there. Now that couldn't be right... one doctor?! For that many people? No way. He must be pretty good if he could get through these people that fast! Slick! I mean, I put 1 and 1 together, with the fresh sign probably written just before I got there, and all the people waiting.
Yeah, I put 1 and 1 together and got 11, that's what I got. But I wouldn't realize that until later.
Until about 4 hours later, actually.
I watched people come and go, I read the book I had brought with me, realizing there'd be a wait, I watched a little tv in between. I didn't like that some people who had gotten there much later than me were getting in before me, but my compassion flared over my impatience and told me that it was okay... they were probably in worse trouble than a blocked ear canal. My ear, however, was starting to hurt a bit, and I was getting a headache from it. Not one of my massive ones, but a nasty, venomous little thing nonetheless. As well, I was getting quite sleepy. The book I'd brought, Stephen King's Geralds Game, had reached a slow point and was dragging on in a way I didn't like. I should have brought one of the other books I was part way into instead, if not in addition, to that one. But I hadn't. I had my discman, but it was of little use, and I didn't want to up the music to the point that I couldn't hear if my name was being called, or called and bastardized in a way which was hard to make out. That happens sometimes.
Then it was called... in under an hour, actually. Well, it was a version of my name, anyhow. But, 'Wow,' I thought, 'maybe I'm more serious than I thought!' Such an idea brought a strange jubilation that I consider weird even now. 'Hooray, I'm in worse shape that I thought!'? Odd. But hey, I wasn't about to protest. I got inside, and was directed into a little waiting room with all sorts of instruments lining it. What I thought might have been a doctor, she certainly looked like one, came in, and asked me the same questions I'd already been asked, which I answered in the same way I had before. Typical, I thought. She wrote some things down on her clipboard, and then came over to me and took me temperature. I wasn't sure what that was for, unless she was about to stuff the thermometer in my ear and work it around a bit. But she didn't. She actually almost got me in the eye with the damn thing before managing to find my mouth. Thanks babe. Then she took my blood pressure, with me all the while thinking... 'um... ear?' What was the deal? Was this an experiment in complacency? Or trying to see how pissed I was?
Then she sent me back out into the waiting room.
Fucking hell.
More watching, more reading, more watching. The 3 hour mark came and left. More watching, more reading, more watching... and more discomfort. Stronger pain, stronger headache, stronger urge to sleep. HUGE urge to just leave and go to a walk in later. But no, I would persevere. I mean, I was there for 3 hours... the sign said a 3-4 hour wait. Surely it wouldn't be the whole 4 hours!
The 4 hour mark came and went. 4 and a half. Finally I'd decided that I must have missed my name due to my now shoddy hearing, and was now completely doomed. I went to the desk to ask at the 4:45 mark, ready to hear the bad news with coat and gloves already on. I was now the only person left whom I recognized when I first came in. Everyone who had been there before me had come and gone, and many more who had shown up afterwards as well. Even if my problem wasn't too serious, I figured I deserved better treatment than *that*, than being forgotten. I mean, I put in my time, I deserved *something*.
Well, it seems no, they hadn't called me yet, they were just 'very backed up'. Sure, fine. Great. I went and stood closer to where they were calling people, just to be sure.
My stomach raged. I saw a girl with a fresh bag of ketchup chips. I salivated like a Pavlovs dog. I found where they were selling the chips. I felt better.
But within 15 minutes of my complaint, well lo and behold! They called my name! And they didn't fuck it up either! Seems the squeaky wheel gets the grease after all, and polite patience gets you dick (which I suppose is fine if you're female or gay, but I'm neither).
I was led to a different small, instrument clad room, however was told that it would still be a while.
Ohh, that bitch wasn't lying. It was another hour, anyhow.
There were a lot of fun, scary and disgusting things in there though. A package of things called 'ear wicks', which I thought might come into use with me. I thought I might be a candidate for some kind of ear candling or something.
Well, eventually, some white guy came in. Just some guy. He could have been anyone. No ID, no white coat, nothing like that. A stethoscope around his neck, but that was about it. I told him my problem, third time of the day for that. I don't know why they write anything down at all. He looked at me with disdain, as if my problem and I were both too far down below him for him to give the slightest trace of a shit about either of us. Doctors with attitude, great. Well, he stuffed his ear examining thingy into both my ears, and let me know that yes, there was a pretty big build up of wax in one ear that should come out. I could have called him Doctor Obvious right there, but I decided that was kind of like spitting in the face of a cop who just let you off on a speeding ticked with a warning. I wanted to though. I wanted to say a couple of other things too... but if this pretentious fuck could suck or scrape this thing out of my ear, I just didn't fucking care. I wanted it out, out out OUT!
That was when he said the magic words, following after "you know, we normally don't do this here in emergency, but since you're here I guess I'll do it. Normally this is a walk-in clinic kind of thing, we normally don't handle this here." Wait, what? 'Since I was here'?! What the fuck? I *ASKED* two nurses 6 hours ago if this was a case for solving here... if I'd be better off buying some product or going somewhere else! Damn hell ass bitches!! 6 hours!
But yes, the magic words: "I'm going to give you an ear syringe," and then he disappeared into the next room after handing me a small plastic tub.
...shit.
Flashes of Stephen King books came to me, mostly a passage from his 'On Writing' book, detailing his own ear problems, and the nothing-in-the-world-like-it pain of having his eardrums pierced repeatedly with needles.
Son of a bitch.
That worried me quite a bit, but the tub worried me even more. What the fuck was *that* for?! My first thought was for puking. My second thought was to catch all the blood spurting out of my ear. I didn't like either of those thoughts, and tried to push them from my head.
He returned with, surprisingly enough, a syringe in it's package. He turned the water on in the sink and tore into the syringe packet. Water? What's *that* for? Obviously, my paranoia was starting to come into good form, going places where I most definitely did not want it to. He also got a towel and placed it on my shoulder. He went over to the sink with the open syringe and did something out of view. I didn't actually want to see any of what was going on, not after hearing the term 'ear syringe', no no.
I held up the plastic tub in inquiry. He placed it against the side of my head so that it my ear rested in the notch in the side of it.
Then he assured me that it acutally wasn't a painful experience as it sounded like, and that there wasn't even a needle on the tip of the syringe. 'Well then what's the deal?' I thought to myself cautiously, not really wanting to know.
But oh, I found out.
He thrust the syringe into my ear canal with a zeal only those who don't really like their job could achieve, and I suddenly understood. There was a sickening rush of fluid or air, I couldn't really figure out which, which flooded my ear canal. It was eye opening and eye watering, and one of the most hideous feelings I've ever experienced. It all happened very quickly, and soon the syringe was empty. That swishing liquidy feeling in the side of my head, though mostly painless, left me feeling very much like God had no business giving us any sensation inside our ears. But it was over and--
--the doctor grasped the side of my head and thrust the syringe in again! Again the swooshing, which I was powerless to do anything about but squint and tighten my face in a grimace of vehement disdain. 'Oh my GOD!' I thought, and may have escaped my lips in a quieter, toned down duplicate.
Again and again it happened, half a dozen times that needle went in my ear. Half a dozen times it was filled with a powerful gush of air or liquid, though now I was sure it was just water, and he was recharging it at the sink like a tiny little super soaker after every assault on my eardrum, and on the vile intruder that had it surrounded.
He said that usually this process worked, and that he'd know when it did, because a big piece of something would just pop out and be carried out into the tub I was holding white-knuckled against my head.
Another injection, and something did move with an audible (to me) pop! The disgusting blockage was gone, gone, gone, leaving only the disgusting liquid left to be drained out. But... it didn't feel better at first. Then the doctor took the tub from me and turned away. I tilted my head onto the towel and the water dribbled out... and... I felt GREAT! It was gone, that horrible, terrible thing which stole 6 hours of my day and half my hearing... it was gone! He turned back to me with the tub, 'Yup, got it. See?' And there it was. Half submerged in a shallow pool of water was something roughly the size of a marble or your thumbnail. It was brown in the center and yellow around the edges, swishing back and forth like some kind of doomed pirate ship. "Oh my GOD!" I said again out loud and with genuine surprise. It was so massive for something that had popped out of my ear! Could all that have actually been in there?! It was impossible! And that it managed to squeeze OUT? My mind went back to the movie Total Recall, when Schwartzanegger pulled that huge glowing tracking thing out of his own nose... it felt a lot like that.
I felt a thousand times better. I felt like doing backflips and kissing that doctor on the lips, no matter how condescending he had been. I thanked him repeatedly, and left with a surreal grin on my face... my hearing restored to even better than it had been, and even better than it was in my right ear.
I passed the nurses desk, and they asked if he had fixed me up, if I could hear again.
My response, of course, was a cheery, "Ohhh yeah!", to which one of them said,
"Good... come over here so I can yell at you then."
What a bitch.
Back.