One of my cats, Tostig, named after the Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria, husband of Judith of Flanders, loser at Stamford Bridge, and brother of the loser of the battle of Hastings, has enormous amounts of fur. Really enormous. This is why, besides calling him by his proper Anglo-Saxon name, I also refer to him as “El Furrito”. Actually, like all cats, he has many other names besides those two, but as I mentioned, what makes him stand out is the unbelievable amount of fur he has. Besides that, he is kind of shy and scared of life, the emotional runt of the litter, and unless he wants his belly scratched, he keeps a healthy distance from anybody who could possibly want to pet him, pick him up, or put him in a cage to go to the vet. But to the vet he went last week when we discovered that he had a nasty boil by the ear. It was actually pretty nasty, but it had been invisible under all that hair. Anyway, he is now better, meowing his lungs off because of the unfairness that while the others can go in and out to do horrible things as they wish, he is still grounded. He is going to be fine, and the vet was pretty helpful.

Speaking of ears, I had my own minor drama this week—though mine involved less fur and more earwax. My ear had been blocked for a few days. My mother has a bit of a history of earwax buildup, and I remember my grandfather also having to deal with that. Besides, in one of my ears, and only one, I have a strange reflex, called Arnold’s nerve reflex or ear-cough reflex, which makes me cough anytime I clean anything but the outermost part of the auditory canal. Incidentally, this seems to be related to the vagovasal response that makes me faint more often than the protagonist of Dumas’ La Dame aux camélias. I faint whenever I am stressed, or rather a few seconds after the reason for the stress is over. I have fainted while getting shots, while watching Million Dollar Baby, after falling from the bike thinking that there was a bus just behind me—there wasn’t—, after cutting myself in the kitchen, after crushing a finger with a door, you name it. Apparently, when it happens it looks pretty dramatic, and I was tested at some point for epilepsy and things like that, but it was just decided that what happens is that I am just a sensitive soul. Which I am. The cough when I clean my ear is rather unpleasant but stops immediately when I stop. Anyway, given the combination of having the genetic potential of being a walking earwax factory and of having every inducement to not do a Mr. Proper job on my ear canal, I was not really surprised to get a blocked ear. Besides, although I could feel some numbness in my ear, it didn’t bother me much, and when I put some drops in there it got a bit better. I was still a bit worried because in a week I am flying to Helsinki and I would prefer not to fly with an ear blocked. Still, nothing to worry about.

But then I got worried. I got worried when I noticed that one of the rubber tips of my earbuds was missing—the one from the blocked ear. So, I added one and one, made a few assumptions, and decided that it was that rubber tip that was blocking my ear. I felt like an idiot because it seemed pretty unlikely, but on Sunday I decided to see a doctor. I guess that I was picturing that if that rubber thing was there, it would spend Sunday afternoon working industriously its way from the ear canal to the aorta or something. I called the hospital and after telling me to fuck off in the most French way, they told me to call the SAMU (Service d’aide médicale urgente). I called—the number is “15”—and first there was some pre-screening, where they asked me why I was calling and such. They told me that they would call back within an hour. The hour passed and after two hours I called again. When they picked up, they knew all about my case, apologized, said that there had been more urgent cases, but then passed me directly to a doctor. He told me that I should go to some version of the emergency room, but that one needed an appointment—it is not exactly the emergency room, but I have no better name for it—and that they would call me back within 15 minutes. An hour later I called again, and after a minimal wait they asked if I could be there 35 minutes later in the hospital. I said I could, and I got the appointment. Once at the hospital, the appointment was on time, and in fact a couple of minutes early because whoever was before me was not to be found. Actually, although I was there waiting in the front row, I was almost not found myself because I cannot still get used to the ways French people can butcher my name: the internet tells me that the standard French pronunciation of Juan Souto Clement is “Zhan Sooto Klem-AN”. How do you expect me to recognize myself under that monstrosity? Anyway, I did recognize myself, went in, the doctor looked, found that I indeed had that rubber thing really deep in there, and then after looking for a while for some suitable device to extract it and explaining very gently what she was going to do—I had warned her of my Dame aux camélias fainting tendencies—it took her about 3 seconds to take it out. I was out of the hospital 15 minutes after I arrived, feeling great for having that thing out of there.

Altogether, the whole SAMU thing compares incredibly well with just going to the emergency room. I mean, yes, they told me that they were going to call and they didn’t. But if you go to the emergency room they look first to see if you are not missing a limb, and if they classify you as a not very urgent case, then you will be there for hours upon hours sitting in the not very comfortable chairs of the waiting room, waiting while they deal with people that have more of a reason than you to be there. With this system I also had to wait for a call, and that was annoying, but I could still wait in the more comfortable chairs at home, just having to spend 15 minutes in the never very happy atmosphere of a hospital. The whole thing made me feel really good about the French medical services—though I’d prefer not to repeat the experience, especially since each pair of earbud tips costs about 5 Euros.