Double Standards in Health Advice

Today I'm angry at my ear specialist for doing the exact opposite of what ear specialists (or doctors generally) always tell you to do. And for inflicting incredible pain on me. You see, I've troubles recently with an ear infection which spooked me because I had to have major ear surgery as a teenager to fix a previous infection and this was looking like it could be a return bout of those problems. And I'd really rather not go deaf. Or have my head collapse as my brain is consumed by some evil infection monster.

So, off to the doctor I go! A round of antibiotics and eardrops later – the infection is gone. Hurrah! But I don't want to take risks so I see a specialist to make sure there's nothing worse going on. The good news is it looks like all is basically OK. The bad news is he says there's a bunch of gross smelly crap in there (I wish he wouldn't use such big scientific words – it was so hard to understand him) and he has to clean it out.

I know what's coming now. This is what happened to me as a teenager. When an ear specialist cleans out your ear it means sticking this long skinny pointy thing (again with the scientific terms!) right in there EXACTLY LIKE THEY TELL YOU NEVER TO DO and scraping stuff right off the surface of your eardrum. Which really fucking hurts. And because it's your ear canal being worked on you get the bonus of disgusting sound effects.

So he wedges my earhole open with some sort of metal funnel then goes to work on me while looking through a microscope. He warns that I shouldn't move because if I move even a millimetre it goes out of focus. This I take as a not-so-subtle threat: "Piss me off and I'll jam this spike right through your fucking brain." So I'm trying not to move or scream even though these are the natural reactions when someone goes spelunking in your head with sharp objects. Occasionally, when it really hurts, I make a pathetic grunt which is my manly way of saying "I hope this isn't going to go on for much longer because I'm about to start crying like a little schoolgirl."

Finally it's over and he even has the temerity to show me all the crap he scraped out and complain how gross it is. Listen buddy, you chose to spend your live probing people's face-holes; don't blame me when you find something gross.