It's fair to say today peaked before 10am for me.
For the past few
months I’ve put up with fluctuating hearing in my right ear; it started towards
the end of my run in Edinburgh in August and reached its worst during the week
of September’s Mostly Comedy, when Old Rightie decided to completely shut up
shop.
The night of the
gig was horrible, as I was performing in a vacuum with my voice placed
front-centre and the audience barely audible at all (for once this wasn’t due
to my material). My set went well, but it was an awful experience for me, as it
threw my timing completely off-kilter; it’s very hard to deliver jokes when
you’ve no idea whether you’re pitching things normally or if anyone’s even
laughing.
A few days prior
to the gig, I visited my GP, who prescribed me a course of olive oil (like I
salad being dressed with vinaigrette.) I was told to use a pipette to squeeze four drops of the oil
in my ear four times a day, to soften up the wax that was completely blocking
my eardrum, and then to return in a fortnight if it was no better.
Two appointments
later and I was back today, with a black bin-bag tied around my
shoulders, holding a cardboard cup beneath the offending ear while a nurse
flushed it full of water (the ear, not the cup). It was a strange sensation,
akin to being water-boarded brain first; there’s a moment of nothing, then a
sudden jet hits your eardrum, like you’re being pressure-washed from the
inside. Then before I knew it, I was back out on the street, making the most of
my newly stereophonic hearing (as in the sound picture, not the band).
In a way, this
felt a little anticlimactic. While it’s fair to say there where times when my
lack of hearing was truly unpleasant, it hasn’t been so bad for the last few
days. I feel like I’ve somehow missed out on instantaneous improvement I would
have felt if it had been done last week. Still, I can’t complain; at
least my house is richer to the tune of an extra candle tonight.