A minute later Mrs. Fregoli sighs heavily and says: “Would you believe my little Georgie just got a three-day suspension from kindergarten?”

What’s not to believe?

“Why was he suspended?” I ask politely.

“Supposedly for poor behaviour. They say that instead of listening to his teacher, he just runs all over the place.”

Sort of like he’s doing right now?

George is merrily tearing around the room. He’s pushing the three-wheeled stool I usually sit on. Every so often he bashes it into one of the walls.

BLAM!

“George, honey; please stop that. Like I was saying, doctor . . .”

BLAM!

I separate George from the stool. He stamps his feet and sits on the floor.

“… I don’t know what they’re talking about. He’s never any trouble at home,” she finishes.

“Is this how his teachers say he behaves at school?” I ask, looking up at the flickering overhead lights. George is treating us all to a funky disco strobe light effect by rapidly oscillating the light switch.

“George, dear; please stop that. No doctor, apparently it’s much worse than this. They say at school he’s completely out of control. My husband and I think they must be exaggerating.”

George is seriously overloading my occipital cortex with his pyrotechnic light show. I can smell burnt toast! Before my impending seizure erupts, I pry his moist little fingers off the switch.

“Stop that,” I hiss at him through gritted teeth. He scowls at me and launches into some mutant cross between jumping jacks and burpees.

“They’ve been after me to get him tested for hyperactivity,” his mum volunteers.

“Well, he certainly is exhibiting – ”

“They also think he might have something called ODD, whatever that is,” she continues.

“Oppositional Defiant Disorder,” I explain.

“Huh?”

“ODD is an acronym for Oppositional Defiant Disorder.”

“Whatever. Anyway, they’ve been trying to get our permission to have him tested for ADD as well as this ODD thing, but we told them to forget it.”

George tips over the wastepaper basket.

“Why don’t you want him tested?” I ask.

George is standing on the three-wheeled stool.

“Because there’s nothing wrong with him,” she replies.

Now he’s doing the Macarena on the stool.

“Then why do you think he behaves like this?”

She looks at me like I’m denser than a neutron star.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks incredulously.

I shake my head to indicate it’s not.

“He’s just curious!” she explains.

Curious George falls off the stool and lands on his butt.

“Ow, Mommy! That hurt!”

“Oh, my poor baby! Come let Mommy give you a big hug, Georgie!”

I’ll probably get a letter from some flesh-eating personal injury litigation lawyer next week.

Cerumen

Last Sunday afternoon the populace stormed the ramparts and our ER was overrun by an army of bellyaches, chest pain, asthma, migraines, fevers and minor trauma. Every time I turned around the receptionist was in dumping a fresh batch of charts on the desk. Sorry, she’d smile at me apologetically before hurrying back to her battle station. Even though I knew it wasn’t her fault, I was beginning to dislike her anyway. Crappy days make me a tad irrational sometimes.

Four hours into the carnage the triage nurse handed me a chart and asked, “Would you mind seeing him next?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Where is he?”

“In the third cubicle.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Earwax.”

“Earwax?”

“Yep.”

“Geez.”

Allow me to explain. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve had this thing about earwax. Simply put, I don’t like it. I don’t even like my own earwax, let alone someone else’s. The less earwax I see, the better. My other beef with earwax is that as far as acute-care medicine is concerned, impacted earwax is without a doubt the world’s biggest non-emergency, particularly when the department is under siege.

I marched over to cubicle C with an electron cloud of negative thoughts whizzing around my head: Isn’t this supposed to be an emergency department? Did this guy even try to book an office appointment with his family doctor? By the time I got there I had worked myself into quite a lather. I yanked back the partially drawn curtain and unleashed an intimidating glare. The gnomish 80-year-old man sitting on the stretcher blinked back at me in surprise. Then he smiled widely and said: “Hello, doctor! Sorry to be such a bother. I know you’re terribly busy today.” All of a sudden my petulance atomized. It’s hard to be mad at someone who reminds you of your dear old great-grandfather.

“Hi Mr. Magoo. I’m Dr. Gray. How can I help you?”

“I have a lot of, um… .” He pointed to his left ear.

“Earwax?” I offered clairvoyantly.

“Yes, earwax! Do you have time to flush it out for me?”

“No problem, sir. I’ll look after that right away.”

I foraged the department for the appropriate hardware and returned to his cubicle. First I examined his ear with an otoscope to make sure his self-diagnosis was correct. His left ear canal was indeed chock-full of the stuff. It was Earwax Heaven in there – the legendary mother lode. Next I draped a thick towel around his neck and got him to hold a kidney basin under his left ear. I then went to the sink and filled a large, stainless-steel syringe with warm water.

“I’m going to flush your ear out now,” I advised him. “It’ll probably feel a little uncomfortable, but if there’s any sharp pain please let me know right away, okay?” He nodded assent. I squirted a jet of water into his left ear canal. The fluid that drained back out was completely devoid of earwax. As I turned to refill the syringe with water I noticed him stealthily inspecting the contents of the basin. I flushed again. Crystal-clear returns. You could have used the water in the basin for an Evian ad. I motioned for him to pass me the basin so I could empty it into the sink. Before handing it over he peered into it again and sighed.

“No wax,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment. I felt like I had struck out with the bases loaded. Call me Casey. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse… .

“Don’t worry sir, we’re not finished yet,” I reassured him hastily as I dumped the water down the drain. I refilled the syringe with fresh water and tried again. This time there were a few specks of wax in the effluent. When he caught sight of them, his eyes widened.

“Look!” he said excitedly. “Look!”

“What?”

“Wax!”

“That’s nice.”

I repositioned the basin under his ear and flushed one more time. A brownish glob shot out of his ear canal. It looked big enough to be a vital organ.

“Look! Look!” he said, waving the basin around a couple of millimetres away from my nose. Some of the fluid sloshed out onto my lab coat. “A chunk! A chunk!” He was practically yodeling. I hazarded a glance. A huge, turd-like piece of earwax was half-submerged in the now-sludgy water. “I can hear!” he shouted. He deposited the basin on the counter, doffed the towel and shook my hand. “Thank you, doctor!” And with that, he was gone; one helluva satisfied customer. I sat on the stretcher with the intention of taking a 20-second Zen break before rejoining the fray and had an unexpected Damascene conversion. That took all of what, three minutes? How often are we modern-day physicians presented with the opportunity to make a patient that happy with such a quick, inexpensive, low-tech procedure?

So now I try really hard not to kvetch too much whenever someone presents to my ER requesting ear syringing. But I do have to confess - I’m still not that crazy about earwax.