During my annual doctor’s visit today, I had a pap smear, tetanus shot, and ear wax cleaning. Out of the three, the tetanus shot was by far the easiest. Even the soreness that occurs afterward just feels like I worked that arm too hard at the gym last night or something…hypothetically, of course, since I did not go to the gym last night, nor have I done so since we moved to Seattle.

Ever since I was a kid, I DREADED getting my ears cleaned. I hate that feeling when something digs so deep into your ear that it’s almost scraping into your ear drum. It makes me cringe and automatically lean to one side, as if avoiding someone coming at one ear. I could totally relate to Mike Myers in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” when he gets all freaked out when Harriett talks about putting something in his ear. He yells, “I have an ear thing!” (Meaning he’s really sensitive to ear issues…)

I remember shedding many tears as a child when the nurse would shoot hot water/peroxide into my ear with a plastic syringe. Today, the nurse filled up a water bottle attached to a thin tube that shot water into my ear. It definitely was not as uncomfortable–but that’s also because I had so much ear wax in my ear that I basically could not feel much. The doctor could not even see into my ear because there was so much gunk in there.

Forty minutes after squirting the water bottle (and many refills), my ears are finally (nearly) wax free, and I can hear so well! Yeah! One of the nurses (yes, it took two nurses since one of them was ready to give up and had another appointment to clean someone’s toenails) described my ear wax as an alien with long fingers. Apparently, at one point, I had a blob of wax pretty much extracted, but it had a long gooey tendril extending to my inner ear, and it was not letting go of whatever it was holding on to.

Let’s hope I don’t have to go through THAT again anytime soon. Time to get out that Debrox bottle again!