August Challenge; the shape of things to come

Progress; we get through the night without another visit to the hospital. Anniemay appears to be finally, but slowly, on the mend.

We saw our GP yesterday. He is an amazing man; he has a knack of explaining things which assumes we have maximum intelligence and minimum knowledge. To supplement what he has to say, he always gets out his pen and pad and makes drawings. In this case a cross-section through Anniemay’s ear.

But he begins with a tuning fork. He holds it first beside the right ear, then against her skull behind the ear. He repeats this for the left side. The one that hurts so much. With the right ear, the sound is louder when the fork is placed beside the ear. With the left ear it’s the other way round; the sound is louder through the skull behind the ear. All of which confirms a serious blockage in the left ear.

He then determines her pain threshold while he rummages in his bag “I’ve got one in here somewhere…” and pulls out a pair of pliers with a long nose, about 6” in length, bent at right angles. I thought they stopped using things like this in the 16th C.

She is extremely brave as he pulls some of the wax away. He stops - partly for her sake - but also because he does not want to make things worse. He can see inflammation in the ear canal and draws a picture. He estimates that there’s about 3cm of wax pushing down on the ear drum which is causing the pain.

He prescribes antibiotics and steroid-based ear drops to reduce the swelling. She has an appointment in a week's time to resume the plier-based therapy. For now, courtesy of super-duper painkillers - the sort that make you start seeing things - she lies in state, away with the fairies.

As she lies on the sofa this morning, I notice the shape of this lamp on the blinds behind her. Seven days and things might be back to normal. And I realise that I’ve finally got in touch with my feminine side - I can do two things at once; nurse and blip.

I can hear the bell ringing, so I must finish this now and be away to my other duties.