Waiting patiently

Today when we were walking past 'Hidden Hearing', we walk past 'Hidden Hearing' pretty much every day, Ann said, 'Trixie, I'm just going to pop in here to make an appointment to have my hearing tested.'

For the last two years Ann has been thinking that she has been going deaf in her right ear. She knows this because when she is listening to something with her ear phones in, she can't hear anything in the right ear. Ann has avoided doing anything about this because she can still hear in her left ear and when the problem first arose, we were still in lock down and it didn't seem important enough to bother a doctor about. And also she didn't want to be told that she was going deaf. Her mother always told her that humans have two of most organs so if something happens to one, then they've still got the other one. However, the situation has got so bad that she can't hear a thing in her right ear now. Her grandfather lost his hearing when he was older so she thought it might be hereditary.


'Hidden Hearing' do free hearing tests so she thought she might as well 'take the bull by the horns', so to speak, and get it done. We popped in to make an appointment and I was very silly and bouncy spoke to a very lovely receptionist and a very lovely guy (who we assumed was the one who did the testing) and when Ann asked if they would be checking if her ears needed to be syringed at the same time, he said he could check that there and then.

2 secs later and he told her that her left ear was completely clear and her right ear was completely blocked and she'd need to get it syringed. ….......So maybe she's not going deaf after all. Yay!  Very lovely guy, told her she could contact her GP to see if they were still doing syringing, and if so, it would be done on the NHS. If not, she would have to pay £70 for them to do it.

Obviously, we trotted straight down to the doctors surgery to find out. Well Ann wasn't going to phone and wait 40 mins in a telephone queue we were going that way anyway. I got tied up at the gate to the surgery because Ann didn't feel that it was appropriate to take me into a doctors surgery. There was only one person in the waiting room and one receptionist behind the desk. Honestly, what are doctors doing these days? Spending all their time on the phone or computer?! Anyway the receptionist was very lovely so often doctors receptionists think they are GOD and said that they'd stopped doing ear-syringing during lock down and hadn't restarted again. WHY? Lock down is supposed to be over and everything is supposed to be back to normal. …............LIFE IS NEVER EVER GOING TO GO BACK TO HOW IT WAS BEFORE LOCKDOWN!!!!!!!

Back to 'Hidden Hearing' we went. Bought some oil that Ann has to use to soften the wax in her ears before they can be syringed and booked an appointment for a couple of weeks time. So my little extra trek around this morning cost Ann £76!!!

….................BUT, hopefully she's not going deaf!!!

PS - Ann's lucky enough to be able to afford to pay to get her ear syringed but what happens to people who aren't?  Do they just have to be deaf for the rest of their life?