If Jesus helped out on my operation, I'd want him to scrub up first - no offence!

I had to go to hospital today with my ears (I'd tried to leave them at the hotel, but they just weren't having it - boom boom!).

I've been taking advantage of the swimming pool here at the hotel, and have been getting increasingly deaf, so a few days ago I got some drops to clear the build up of wax (lovely image). Anyway, against the best advice of my mother, who always told me quite firmly never to stick anything in my ears, I had a good poke around with a cotton bud to see if that would help.

It didn't, and from that point on not only could I hear almost nothing from my right ear, but tenderness turned first to soreness and then to pain. Cursing, knowing that I’d brought all this upon myself, I promised myself last night that if it hadn't improved by the morning I'd see a quack.

I woke up with much worse pain, and feeling like the whole right side of my head had swollen up - I expected to see blood trickling from my ear when I looked in the mirror...I always was a drama queen.

I asked at the chemists if they could recommend a doctor, and they advised Mission Hospital, which is run by Seventh Day Adventists, hence the paintings of Jesus advising doctors, comforting families, or assisting in operations like the picture above.

I saw an ear specialist, who had a little look before sticking a miniature Hoover in my ear and sucking out - along with the sort of gunk one would expect to find in a clogged up ear - a sizeable portion of the fluffy end of a cotton bud! She admonished me for my foolishness - and for the first time in a week I could hear in stereo - and sucked a further piece out of my other ear, before sending me away with antibiotics and ear drops.

The moral of the story is: Mother knows best - if only I'd listened to her!