Today’s writing prompt. Caution: A bit gory!

When I was a babe in arms, my sister, presumably mistaking me for one of her dolls, decided to do some investigating with a hairclip, by sticking it in my ear. Unfortunately, when she pulled the clip out, she pulled out most of my eardrum with it. I know, ouch, yes? Fortunately, I don’t remember any of this but I’m sure it was a fun scene.

Anyhoo, because I was a baby, they could not do any corrective surgery until I had grown some. The years between that event and when I finally got to be operated on had a big effect on me. I had to learn to lip-read to a degree, Paranoia sets in too. When you look up and people stop talking and look at you (likely a quite innocent reaction to seeing some movement) it makes you (me) think they were talking about you (me). It affects me to this day.

Anyway, when I was 12/13, I was seen by an RAF doctor (military family), Air Commodore King (nothing but the best y’know). He was brilliant at psychology. He never asked if I was nervous or anxious about the operation, but he gauged my frame of mind perfectly. His explanation of the procedure was basically; “What we’ll do is get a carving knife or something, cut round your ear, slap it over so we can see what we need to do, rummage around for a bit, stuff it all back in and then probably staple you up because we’re light on cotton…”

Like I said, perfect. I wasn’t worried about the process at all after that.

So, come the date, I get taken to the hospital in RAF Halton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Halton)

After getting my head shaved (this was the era of the feather cut, I was more upset with that than the op.) I was in the operating theatre for about 8 hours in total. Then I was taken back to the ward to recover.

Now, I have no idea how long I was non compus mentis but I came to with a very strange sensation of being wet. Now for a second I thought I might have had a little accident, so I pulled the bedclothes back and was horrified to see I was lying in a massive pool of blood! Scared the crap out of me… I yelled for the nurse who was just as shocked but she quickly realised I wasn’t losing blood, the plasma drip had just worked itself loose…

Happy days. I was saddened to see that the base is closing in 2027. Shame, have a look though, it is a great place.