After a recent trip, I brought back a little souvenir – an infected ear.
I have also got Tinnitus, which, to the uninitiated, means I permanently have a brass band – the cymbal section to be more precise – playing in my head.
To add to that, my already massive face had swelled up on one side, which added to my possible casting in a horror movie.
And, to add further to that, it was my right ear and side of the face. I am already deaf in my left ear.
So, on arrival home, feeling a bit worse for wear and expecting some kind of sympathy, old mate has COVID for the first time and is as sick as a dog, short of breath, coughing and finding it hard to communicate. Awesome.
Communication went like this: Either one of us would say something and the other one would reply with “What did you say,” “I can’t hear you,” “I am having trouble talking,” which would escalate into a disagreement of differing magnitude, depending whose fault it was, (if it was hers, minimal, if it were mine, monumental).
So after a while, there was just silence and head shaking. Awesome.
After about a week of me listening to the band in my head and receiving minimal communication – just necessary instructions – we both started to feel better and, with neither of us being charged with murder, it looked like everything was on the mend.
That was until George the kelpie cross woke me up at about 3am, urgently wanting to go outside and, on investigation, he had chronic diarrhea!
Did I mention my back yard is all synthetic grass?
So, at 3 in the morning, torch in my mouth, I am trying to clean up my backyard and my own vomit – which was quite the party trick considering I had my phone in my mouth with its torch on.
So, there was about four days of that, a trip to the vet, and a bill that looked like a long-distance phone number, but my grass and I were grateful, things started to improve, and life was nearly back to normal.
So, old mate and I could communicate, she was feeling better, my face had got back to just normal balloon head size, the band had knocked the volume back and George was back to his normal self.
I then saw an appointment in my diary – colonoscopy.
I made a promise to myself to stay off the synthetic grass.
Ashley Robinson is a columnist with Sunshine Coast News and My Weekly Preview. His views are his own.
