#oneaday Day 831: Receiving the succ

Today I got sucked off. And by that I mean I had all the wax noisily hoovered out of my ears by a nice lady at Boots.

I'd been dealing with a sporadic issue with my right ear for a while. It started during a holiday a few years back, where Andie and I spent a few days away in Bournemouth. Bournemouth is not far away from where we live, but it is far enough away that it felt like a nice holiday, so we thought we'd just do it. It was nice.

Apart from one day, where I'd spent some time in the pool, got an ear full of water — nothing unusual there, it's happened before — but then, after attempting to empty out the water, my ear was just sort of… stuck. I don't really know exactly what was going in there, but it felt like someone had glued it shut. No amount of wriggling it around, poking it, wanging my hand over it and making farty noises with it and stuffing things into it unblocked it, causing me a not-inconsiderable amount of concern that I might have just suddenly gone deaf.

I had not, in fact, suddenly gone deaf, and the blockage, stickiness, whatever it was, disappeared naturally after a while. But ever since, I have had infrequent episodes of it coming back, usually brought on by sleeping or lying on it. Finally, I decided that I should probably do something about it, and looked into "getting my ears syringed", which is something I knew people had done sometimes, but which didn't sound very pleasant and consequently was something I had been putting off investigating further. (Fun fact: according to Andie, who has had it done in the past, it's actually quite a pleasant experience.)

I discovered during my investigations that one does not simply get one's ears syringed any more. Aside from the fact that apparently you can't just go to your doctor and get it done any more — I increasingly find myself wondering exactly what the police, fire service and medical professionals are actually doing all fucking day these days, with all the things they "don't do any more" — the practice has apparently fallen out of favour, to be replaced with a procedure known as "microsuction". Which is exactly what it sounds like; someone sticks a tube in your ear which sucks really hard, and all the goopy horrible wax comes plopping out a bit at a time.

I went for my initial appointment just before we went away on holiday, and my left ear got cleared out nicely, but my right ear apparently had some hardened, awkwardly positioned wax that was a bit close to my ear drum for the nice lady to go poking and sucking around. As such, she suggested I spend the next week and a bit dribbling olive oil into my ear (it really works, as ridiculous as it sounds) and then come back for the job to get finished. She even only charged me for half the appointment on that first occasion.

Today, I went back for the follow-up appointment, half-expecting the various concoctions I have dribbled into my right ear over the course of the last week and a half to not have had all that much of an effect. But thankfully, they had. And the (different) nice lady who took me through the whole process this time was highly entertaining.

I suspect that she may have been an exorcist in a previous life, because when surveying my lugholes prior to getting the sucking started, she caught herself referring to the "streaks of darkness". Then, while the process was ongoing, she gleefully announced that "the darkness is being released! The darkness is coming!" which I found exceedingly amusing but had to try not to laugh because it's best not to jiggle around too much when someone has a powerful suction device inserted into your head.

Anyway, long story short, all the disgusting goop that was in my ears is now in the revolting receptacle at the base of the machine (bet it's fun emptying that out) and, after the initial temporary mild deafness brought on by the screeching, bubbling sounds of disgusting goop being sucked out of my ears into a machine, hopefully that will prevent any further auditory mischief, at least for the immediate future.

It was £65 for the whole process, which sounds pricy, but the service was helpful, respectful (exorcist-style comments aside) and informative. If you've never had your ears cleaned out by someone who knows what they're doing, I can recommend the experience, particularly if you've ever had a gummed-up weird sticky ear issue like I've had. I am looking forward to (hopefully) not experiencing that again for a while!

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#oneaday Day 595: A nice chat with my doctor

I went to the doctor today. My knee has been playing up for a while, and got particularly bad over the Christmas break when it was especially cold. I suspected it was little more than my knee going "you're too heavy, sort it out", but I just wanted to confirm that it wasn't anything more serious. (It wasn't. I am too heavy and need to sort it out.)

I came away from the appointment feeling oddly invigorated, though. I'd ended up being there for about half an hour in total, approximately two minutes of which were spent actually examining me. But my doctor apparently wanted to talk today. And I was happy to let him.

It started with a rant about politicians. I'd come to him as a result of one of those "e-consult" things because my surgery is apparently incapable of activating their online appointments system, and I hate doing the 8am rush to phone for an appointment. My doctor apparently doesn't think all that much of the e-consult system — I don't either, as it happens, but it seemed like the most reliable method of getting at the very least a call back without having to sit on hold on the phone for hours — and expressed some considerable frustration at how government guidelines have given him "quotas" of routine and emergency appointments to fulfil.

Now, I'm sure we're all familiar with the technique of requesting an "urgent" appointment for something that is absolutely not an emergency, and I suspect it's that sort of behaviour that has led to these quotas. But I was more than happy to let him go off on one about how politicians had no idea what it was like for actual surgery staff, particularly now that the practice he works at, originally intended for no more than 9,000 patients in total, is now serving more than 16,000 people, with more registering by the week, it seems.

After examining my knee and telling me I'm fat (in a more polite way than that, and he was apologetic about it) he then told me about his own personal history dealing with weight loss, a genetic predisposition towards being on the larger side, exercise and suchlike. It was an interesting conversation, even if it was a tad one-sided — like I say, the poor chap clearly wanted to talk to someone about absolutely fucking anything, and I was more than happy to let him. Although he was clearly frustrated about things, he's also a nice, friendly chap, and I know very well how helpful it can be to just have someone who is willing to listen sometimes.

So, all told, I have a feeling that my doctor may have got more out of my appointment today than I did. Still, it was reassuring to know that there's not actually anything wrong with my knee — I just need to lose some weight. And I'm working on that! It's been nearly a full week on the diet plan now, and it's been going pretty solidly so far. Let's hope that leads to some actual, tangible results.

And Dr. W? I hope you feel better soon. I know all too well how frustrating government interference in your profession can be from my time as a teacher, so you have my sympathies. I wish I could reassure you that things will get better from hereon, but… well, you can see the state of the world right now. Hang in there. You provide a vital service to the community, and I hope you know how much people like me appreciate your work.

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2393: The Drugs Sometimes Work

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Early last year, shortly after I lost my job at raging shithole SSE for reasons at least partly linked to my depression and anxiety, I decided enough was enough and went to the doctor to seek some chemical help with my mental health issues. I was prescribed a drug called Sertraline, which I dutifully took for well over a year.

I can't quite tell whether or not Sertraline had any effect; I think on the whole, it did improve my mental health somewhat — although this may well be a placebo effect — though it didn't "cure" it. There is no such thing as a magic bullet that will "cure" depression and anxiety, unfortunately; if there were, whichever drug company was able to churn it out by the ton first would doubtless become the first "megacorporation" with all the proceeds, and we'd officially be living in even more of a futuristic dystopia than we do already.

One thing I found while on Sertraline though, and I don't know if this was the drug causing the problem or my own overactively anxious imagination, was that I had great difficulty sleeping. I'd lie awake until 3, 4 in the morning most nights, unable to get to sleep until my body was so exhausted it simply shut down. Prior to that, my brain would be rapidly darting back and forth between all manner of different thoughts — some worries, some desires, some recollections, some pure fantasies — and be far too "alert" to allow me to properly switch myself off and get some much-needed rest.

I persevered with this for probably far longer than I should have, but eventually, once again, I decided that enough was enough, and I wanted to try something new. I'd seen some positive effects on someone (who shall remain nameless for the moment) who had exhibited similar symptoms to me at times when switching from Sertraline to another drug called Mirtazapine, so I went to my doctor armed with this knowledge and asked to switch to see how I got on.

Like the other person, the difference was night and day. While Mirtazapine is also no "magic bullet" to completely alleviate depression and anxiety, one of the things that was bothering me the most — the inability to sleep, and the anxiety this caused — is "fixed". I can go to bed at a reasonable hour now and actually get to sleep when I choose to put my head down. Rather than constantly worrying that I don't know "how" to get to sleep — which is something that continually bothered me while I was on Sertraline, and possibly beforehand, too — I can just, you know, sleep without thinking about it, like a normal human being.

This has made quite a difference to my overall outlook on life. Getting a decent night's sleep is important, and as soon as you start getting it again having endured a period where you haven't had it, you really appreciate it.

Plus Mirtazapine gave me about a week of feeling perpetually stoned and having some incredibly vivid, crazy dreams, too, so if nothing else it was worth it for that experience.

#oneaday, Day 277: Boobies

The title of this post was suggested to me as I was suffering slight writers' block due to being in a room with a number of other people, some of whom are playing Modern Warfare 2, others of whom are listening to the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. Which, in itself, is pretty awesome, but isn't exactly the most conducive environment for nurturing the best of one's creativity. The post itself will not be about boobies. Unless I really can't think of anything else to write about.

Mmm, boobies… Sorry, where was I?

So I thought I'd go a bit stream-of-consciousy for tonight. I haven't done that for a while. This isn't proper full-on freewriting, 'cause I'm not starting the timer and writing for a set number of minutes. But I am writing things as they come into my head. Which is nice. It also means that I might go off on something of a tangent as I – oh look, there's a badger with a gun, do you see?

I am currently drinking grape soda, which I'm sure I have had before and liked but had forgotten quite how much it tasted like Calpol – the nice purple stuff you have when you're a little kid, not the foul and disgusting pink stuff you get when you're over the age of six (the imaginatively-named "Calpol Six-Plus", fact fans). For those of you reading in American, Calpol was, for a long time (and possibly still) the generic "cure-all" medicine for children. I have no idea what was in it that made boo-boos go away, but for kids it is very much the equivalent of the fantasy RPG "cure-all potion" that restores hit points and, if it's a fancy-pants version that costs more than 50 gold a time, sometimes cures status effects.

What was I saying? Nothing much at all, really. This is perhaps not my best work. But, you know, you work with what you've got. And I'm currently full of pizza and Calpol-flavoured fizzy stuff, surrounded by people I like very much indeed and so frankly, I'm more than happy with this post reflecting the pleasant feelings of "Ahh…" that I'm enjoying right at this moment. Regular followers of this blog since I started the whole #oneaday thing will know that it's been quite a while since I've been able to really sit back, enjoy myself and make a contented-sounding noise like "Ahh…" so I'm damn well going to enjoy it.

I may be broke, unemployed and not exactly in the position I envisaged being in at this stage of my life. But, you know, for the moment? I can deal with it. Things could be worse – things have been worse – so I'm pleased to say that this could well be that downward spiral taking a turn for the better. If spirals can indeed take turns for the better.

You know what I mean. You reach rock bottom, you have to start climbing back out again sometime. So onwards and upwards it is, and thank you to those people who have made it possible. You know who you are.

Now there are games to play and Calpol to drink. Night night.