When you've got a lot wrong with you, it seems to be an invitation for a lot of other things to hop along for the ride. Some of them are just plain weird. A couple of days ago I woke up unable to move my right arm or neck without being in intense pain and to top it all off I found that my left ear had turned into a vibrant red cauliflower.
I went to the doctor and he didn't give two hoots about the fact I couldn't move on my right side, but he looked very alarmed by my ear. 'I've not seen anything like that before' he said with a start, and looked at me like he'd just been introduced to the Elephant Man with his mask off.
After checking my history, he went downhill saying 'oh you've had a terrible time, and you've got some new ailments now that are just awful. And it's the doctor's strike, so it's come at the worst time.' Then he gave me a kind of half hug, grimaced, and said he couldn't do anything for me.
In a strange sort of way, I ended up feeling sorry for him.
That is, until he sent me to A&E and I got stuck in the mother of all waiting times nursing my enormous protruding ear.
When the A&E doctor called the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist to share the photo she'd taken of my ear, I wondered what other collection of horrors she had stored on her phone. Truly that would be the worst of all phones to steal and one can only imagine the strain of PTSD that a robber might go through upon seeing her photo library. My ear snaps could well have been the prettiest thing in there.
As she described the person attached to the ear to the ENT specialist, she said 'and he has a number of co-morbidities' which wasn't an expression I'd heard before. Essentially it sounds like, he's got a truck load of things that are lining up to dust him off.
Getting old is a sobering experience.
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