Deaf
Ok, from
the ian pemberton bit from the yan chapter...
Was about 7
or 8
Hell just
remembered nursery!
Anyroad,
(btw have i mentioned yet that most of the time i write this i’m probably 5 or
10 x way over the legal driving limit in relation to drink-driving...yes, i’m a
pisshead! – new chapter? Drugs/alcohol???? Lol)
Ha har de
har! Last bit should be in the intro!
Ok, ian
P....during one class said to me ‘hey, if you put a pencil into your ear &
twist it about it feels real good’
‘does it?’
i asked, innocently, yet mega interested.
So what
does he do? Inserts his pencil forcefully into my ear & twizzles it around!
Unknowingly he’d inserted it so far into my ear that he’d ruptured my tympanic
membrane with the pencil lead...which had ‘disappeared’ from his pencil! Oh, i
wonder where that had gone?!?!
Yup I was
fucked earwise! Which kinda compounded with my genetic (or so i’ve second
guessed) ear problems...which means whenever i get a cold or similar i can now
follow the symptoms...chest infection, beat that. Gone to throat infection
(sore throat), beat that. Then poorly nose – bunged up – oh oh oh, what a
surprise my ears are tingling.....oh my, i have an ear infection...an inner ear
infection. You know what tht means right? Half way between your brain – your
ears in the middle - & the outside world on the outside...a certain kind of
pressure builds up! Thats the start! When i was a kid, it used to take a while
to be made aware, nowadays its happening in a speeded up way! This pressure
builds up & up! Until it becomes painful. In my minds eye i see the inner
ear fluid becoming infected by disease, and the white blood cells try &
fight the illness & there’s a battle like Helm’s Deep from lord of the
rings, or whatevs. Therefore the pressure builds up by a squillion% the pain
& intensity magnifies from the inside of my eardrum/tympanic membrane.
Imagine it stretching cuz this battle is ongoing constantly, without rest &
there’s more & more casualties & therefore there’s more & more
cells thrown in to fight this disease yet there’s no peace cuz my white cells
can’t kill it The disease is still alive & growing! The mass of pain
intensifies to unbearable levels...this is where i start to moan & cry in
low mode (as a child i believe i used to cry & scream ALL night long – without any
aid...paracetamol/ibruprofen doesn’t touch it. Nowadays whenever i get a chest
infection kinda realise it’ll work its way up my tubes & stuff to do the
throat thing & eventually reach me ears & a perforation of the tympanic
membrane is inevitable! The only thing that helps fight the infection is
antibiotics. But when i tell the doctors this, prior to my easrdrums bursting
is – have i tried analgeiacs and how dare i suggest antibiotics whn its
their decision abot them, lol. Oh your eardrums look red – in their
tympaniscope...oh well, when they do burst at least the inscrutiating pain has
then gone, but i’m incredibly deafened for days afterwards).
So as an 8
year old (?) walking to primary school on my own, -it seemed to be a different
age then – i ha my Parker coat on, walking down the lane to school, hood up
(further to increase my not haering-very-well) and i remember a car or 2 nearly
running me over as i crossed a road. Basically cuz i was used to relying on my
sense of hearing to haer the approaching vehicle! Wrong!!!! I shoulda used
sight but i was still caught up with hearing..which was severely impaired!
Luckily for me, my haering difficulty was only temporary.
Wonder if i
could call up my medical records fgropm when i was 8? Why? Cuz around then i
had grommets surgically implanted into my ears! I recall my grandma being there
in the hospital soothing my fears & vaguely remember being told that they
would fall out of my ears in my slep....i had many nights where i imagined some
crystal glass miniature tubes being deposited onto my pillow! Well, i’m soon to
be 48, been in various very loud punk bands & i’m still able to hear stuff
– so i do thank my lucky stars! Though my dad was always goping om about being
deaf too guerss that was a fear of huis, & currently he ain’t deaf, so
maybe we are not genetically dispoded towards it. Yet he left an impression on
me. What with my own experience of how potentiually life-threatening it could
be. When i began as a student nurse – ion 1997, i heard of BSL lessons at
Cauldon College in stoke or was it when i met mel? Hmmmmmm....