Can You Hear Me at The Back?


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.

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