Well, after a week of dripping oil into my ears (sometimes the oil seemed to be running in one ear and out the other) I thought that, just possibly, my hearing was improving, but not by very much, and so I went along at half past two to see Nurse Harji in Consulting Room 6. Nurse Harji smiled broadly and sat me down and then, with the medical instrument that you use for peering into ears, looked first into the one and then into the other. I had expected she would tell me they were full of oil, or maybe fluff, certainly full of wax, but after some careful looking she said she couldn't see any wax at all and concluded therefore that I didn't need any syringing, which was all a bit of a let down as I had steeled myself for the operation.
As it seemed we now had time on our hands she asked me if she might take my blood pressure about which I was dubious. My blood pressure is at best disobliging and has a habit of rocketing unexpectedly. But on this occasion all was well - indeed super well. One hundred and fifteen over eighty, she told me; and I said it hadn't been that low since I had been a carefree travelling student and had given blood for the princely sum of £25 at a clinic in Athens in 1966.
Nevertheless, she thought I should see the doctor anyway who could advise whether I should be referred to the hearing clinic for assessment and possible fitting of a digital hearing device. No appointments today, she regretted, looking at her computer screen, but there would be one tomorrow at four thirty. 'I am sorry to have to ask you to come back,' she said, apologetically. I said not to worry, that tomorrow at four thirty would suit just fine, so she wrote me a card and then dismissed me with a kind, caring and professional smile.
So back I went to the surgery the next day, five deferential minutes early and I sat and waited and as I waited picked up Good Housekeeping (February 2011 edition). We must be an honest lot down here for this edition, despite being a year old, still had all its freebies intact. There was some fetching lotion or other in a little sachet glued inside - I think it was just plain body milk, but anyway it had a fancy name - and I wondered whether I might be entitled - as compensation for the wait which was fast becoming prolonged - to remove it. In the end I decided that I wasn't and didn't, but afterwards felt a little disappointed with myself for being timid.
There's a telescreen in the waiting area which summons patients to their doctors and in between broadcasts health ‘advice’ to the halt, the sick and the lame waiting for their appointments. Advice about falls seemed to figure prominently on the endless loop (which seemed to have some kink in it for parts of the message played upside down). 'Wear sensible shoes,' the telescreen advised. 'Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day' it beseeched, which made me want to ask: do nuts count? The screen said nothing about nuts and of course you can't ask it a question.
At last, after three-quarters of an hour, I got to see my lovely doctor looking much as though she could use a well-made gin and tonic. I told her that maybe the olive oil was working for the previous night I had managed to hear, and more or less understand, an episode of Midsomer Murders (or at least half an episode, for a whole episode might have damaged my sanity, what with headless horsewomen and folk colliding with tree trunks and gargoyles) and with the TV at normal volume.
She then peered into my ears and said that nurse Harji had been quite right and my ears were indeed devoid of wax. "But what I think we ought to do", she continued quickly in a loud voice, just in case I had other ideas, is to discount the temporary amelioration that you report "and send you for a Hearing Assessment." And with that she typed a word or two into the keyboard and then asked in a determined and a 'can't you see what the time is' sort of voice, whether there was anything else she might do for me. There wasn't. Or at least we should have been there until midnight if we had started on the details of my crumbling organs.
And so we said goodbye and I went out into the freezing cold and found that my sugar levels had in the meantime dropped to zero and that I had to purchase digestive biscuits in order to fuel myself for the gentle climb up the hill to home. Now that I remember it, one of the Good Housekeeping articles suggested you should always keep a tin of almonds in your handbag to avert just such problem. So maybe there was some sense in the magazine after all, almonds I am sure being better for you than digestive biscuits even though I am still no wiser as to whether they count towards your five a day. I should have asked, I suppose. Anyway, I still think I should have purloined the sachet of body milk.
