Many, many years back, right at the start of my career, I was working in a hospital somewhere deep in the heart of the North-East. The hospital was tiny, with a smattering of staff; but it was busy and challenging and I loved working there. My remote posting was also made easier by this fun friend I had made there, a pretty dentist K who was working alongside me in the same hospital; and us being the only two single young women, quite naturally we were also sharing a room. Very soon my vivacious room mate met a dashing young man, fell in love and quickly got married. Of course, once married, she shifted home but we continued to remain good friends, her affable husband joining our little gang and even today, I can recall many a pleasant evening spent together over bowls of buttery Maggi, chilled Coke and deliciously gross B-grade Hollywood horror flicks on VCR.
One night, at around half past eleven, I received a sudden call from my friend, "Aibee, N has a severe ear ache....Could you suggest something for it?"
I am usually loathed to prescribe medicines on telephonic consultation but it was a cold night and my friend seemed reluctant to leave the warmth of her cottage and come to the hospital for a face-to-face consult. So I relented, advised a painkiller and after telling her that she should bring N to me first thing in the morning the next day, I burrowed back into my warm quilt.
Next morning at around seven my friend was on the telephone again, her voice frantic:
"Aibee, could you see him now? N's writhing with pain!!!"
I rushed to the hospital. The duo were already waiting for me there. The normally always smiling N looked kind of beaten by the pain and only managed a wry "Hi!"
He explained to me that the pain was intermittent, occurring irregularly with completely pain free intervals but when it happened, the agony was excruciating.
I sat N on the patient stool and began examining his ear canal with my auroscope. I was so fixated on examining his eardrum, thinking an infection and impending rupture probably being a cause for his pain, that at first I failed to spot it. But his ear drum was in an immaculate condition, healthy grey-pink, reflecting my auroscope light in a perfect text book cone. I was a bit foxed now, wondering about the cause of his pain and it was only as I began withdrawing my instrument from N's ear canal, that I spotted it. Typical blackish brown oval humped body ......
"Its a bedbug!!!!! I screamed at N.
"N, its a bed bug........."
It took some time for the thing to sink into both my friends.
"A bed bug????"
They looked at me blankly.
"Yup".
I began giggling, losing the serious doctor mask I usually wear when I'm working:
"N, तेरे कान में खटमल है......"
But N was not amused in the least. He looked back at me with a highly offended look that said plainly, 'How can you even think that I would be harbouring in MY ear, of all God's creatures great and a small, a BEDBUG ??????'
I would have laughed again but my amusement was cut short by a sudden contortion of N's face, a contortion of deep agony.
He looked at me and said hoarsely, "Its hurting again!"
As I inserted the auroscope back into his ear, I saw a red flush spread rapidly over the right side poor N's face and neck and I realised how terrible the pain must be.
I peeked into the instrument, trying to locate the scumbag of a bedbug when something fluttered against my right thumb.
I jerked my hand out, looked and to my amused horror, found that scumbag bedbug waving his/her feelers at me from the top of my thumb.You see, the bedbug had climbed out of N's ears on the back of my auroscope! Imagine the cheek!!!!!
Reflexly, I shrugged my hand and the little fellow toppled off onto the ground and disappeared into the depths of the OPD linoleum... Though K gave a short half-hearted chase but it was futile and the nocturnal vampire was never to be seen again.
When I checked back on N's ear canal, I found a few bleeding spots with a bit of ooze: fang marks of the tiny Dracula. It was then that I realised why N's pain was episodic: it happened when our bug bit into the skin of his ear canal and it ceased the moment the fellow stopped biting. I prescribed N some antibiotics as prophylaxis against any possible infection alonwith a painkiller and after much ribbing about the bug in his ear, I let him free.
The story doesn't end there.
About a month later, one evening K landed up in my OPD with a sheepish grin on her face:
"Aibee, I think I've got a bug in my ear..."
I was too flabbergasted to even giggle.
"What, you too?" I was almost disbelieving.
"Its fluttering inside my ear!" she justified, a trifle apologetically.
And so it was time once again for my auroscope. But thankfully, this time it was only a little mosquito that we drowned very easily with some paraffin and tweezed the corpse out.
Well, many years have passed since then and N and K are now a happy family with the addition of a son, a K Junior. We've kept touch off and on but I've never really gotten to ask them if K Junior too has a story to tell- of being bugged in the ear like his Ma and his Pa................!
One night, at around half past eleven, I received a sudden call from my friend, "Aibee, N has a severe ear ache....Could you suggest something for it?"
I am usually loathed to prescribe medicines on telephonic consultation but it was a cold night and my friend seemed reluctant to leave the warmth of her cottage and come to the hospital for a face-to-face consult. So I relented, advised a painkiller and after telling her that she should bring N to me first thing in the morning the next day, I burrowed back into my warm quilt.
Next morning at around seven my friend was on the telephone again, her voice frantic:
"Aibee, could you see him now? N's writhing with pain!!!"
I rushed to the hospital. The duo were already waiting for me there. The normally always smiling N looked kind of beaten by the pain and only managed a wry "Hi!"
He explained to me that the pain was intermittent, occurring irregularly with completely pain free intervals but when it happened, the agony was excruciating.
I sat N on the patient stool and began examining his ear canal with my auroscope. I was so fixated on examining his eardrum, thinking an infection and impending rupture probably being a cause for his pain, that at first I failed to spot it. But his ear drum was in an immaculate condition, healthy grey-pink, reflecting my auroscope light in a perfect text book cone. I was a bit foxed now, wondering about the cause of his pain and it was only as I began withdrawing my instrument from N's ear canal, that I spotted it. Typical blackish brown oval humped body ......
"Its a bedbug!!!!! I screamed at N.
"N, its a bed bug........."
It took some time for the thing to sink into both my friends.
"A bed bug????"
They looked at me blankly.
"Yup".
I began giggling, losing the serious doctor mask I usually wear when I'm working:
"N, तेरे कान में खटमल है......"
But N was not amused in the least. He looked back at me with a highly offended look that said plainly, 'How can you even think that I would be harbouring in MY ear, of all God's creatures great and a small, a BEDBUG ??????'
I would have laughed again but my amusement was cut short by a sudden contortion of N's face, a contortion of deep agony.
He looked at me and said hoarsely, "Its hurting again!"
As I inserted the auroscope back into his ear, I saw a red flush spread rapidly over the right side poor N's face and neck and I realised how terrible the pain must be.
I peeked into the instrument, trying to locate the scumbag of a bedbug when something fluttered against my right thumb.
I jerked my hand out, looked and to my amused horror, found that scumbag bedbug waving his/her feelers at me from the top of my thumb.You see, the bedbug had climbed out of N's ears on the back of my auroscope! Imagine the cheek!!!!!
Reflexly, I shrugged my hand and the little fellow toppled off onto the ground and disappeared into the depths of the OPD linoleum... Though K gave a short half-hearted chase but it was futile and the nocturnal vampire was never to be seen again.
When I checked back on N's ear canal, I found a few bleeding spots with a bit of ooze: fang marks of the tiny Dracula. It was then that I realised why N's pain was episodic: it happened when our bug bit into the skin of his ear canal and it ceased the moment the fellow stopped biting. I prescribed N some antibiotics as prophylaxis against any possible infection alonwith a painkiller and after much ribbing about the bug in his ear, I let him free.
The story doesn't end there.
About a month later, one evening K landed up in my OPD with a sheepish grin on her face:
"Aibee, I think I've got a bug in my ear..."
I was too flabbergasted to even giggle.
"What, you too?" I was almost disbelieving.
"Its fluttering inside my ear!" she justified, a trifle apologetically.
And so it was time once again for my auroscope. But thankfully, this time it was only a little mosquito that we drowned very easily with some paraffin and tweezed the corpse out.
Well, many years have passed since then and N and K are now a happy family with the addition of a son, a K Junior. We've kept touch off and on but I've never really gotten to ask them if K Junior too has a story to tell- of being bugged in the ear like his Ma and his Pa................!
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