Doctor’s Visit
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2026 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail by  Major Matt Mason

Prompt: earwax



“Mister Carson? Mister Carson?” the nurse called out, saying his name a little louder. Frank finally looked up from the old fishing magazine he’d been reading, and the spaniel in nursing scrubs smiled. She said at the same volume, “Come with me please.” Frank got to his feet and followed her out of the waiting room.

“Have a seat,” the spaniel femme said, speaking clearly and distinctly as she showed him into an examination room. “The doctor will be in shortly.” She closed the door, leaving him in silence.

Frank snapped his fingers near his left ear and frowned when he could barely hear the sound. He’d been having the problem for a few days, and it’d only got worse. Finally, Louise had suggested he see a doctor about the problem. Fortunately, the specialist he’d selected was in his insurance policy’s network.

Still, he hoped it wouldn’t cost too much.

He looked around the exam room and stared at a squat metal box on a steel cart. The label next to a nasty-looking probe read Cautery, a word he recognized. Without thinking about it, Frank gulped and almost didn’t hear the knock on the door that preceded the doctor entering the room. “Mister Carson?” he asked, stepping over to Frank as a nurse followed him in.

“Huh? Yes?”

The doctor was a tall rat, middle-aged like Frank. He was wearing a white lab coat over his black scrubs. “I’m Doctor Gengaro,” he said, and he and Frank shook paws before the doctor consulted Frank’s chart. “You’ve been having hearing loss over the past few days?”

“Yeah, Doc,” Frank said. “Really bad.”

“How bad?”

“I can’t hear anything out of my right ear, and not much out of my left.”

“Been sick lately?”

“No.”

“Hm. You say here you had your tonsils out when you were nine?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Gengaro was speaking loud enough, angled to Frank’s left, so he could hear him.

“Any problems with your balance?”

“Huh?”

“Any trouble with balance? Walking? Standing?”

“Oh! Nope.”

“Okay.” The doctor set the chart aside and plucked an instrument from its wall-mounted charger. He flicked the small light source and played it across his free paw before stepping over to Frank. “I’m going to look in your ears, so hold still, please.” The rat grasped Frank’s left earlobe and Frank felt the hard plastic cone rub against the interior of his earlobe. “Huh . . . mm-hm . . . wow.“

“’Wow?’” Frank asked.

“I was going to say it looked like a little Nativity scene in there, but that’s an old joke,” the rat said with a smile. “Never mind. Let’s have a look in the right.” He peered in. “Hm.” He stepped back and flicked off the light on the otoscope. “Being a bat, you probably value your hearing,” he said.

Frank nodded. “Yeah. So - ?”

“It’s earwax.”

“Earwax?”

“Earwax. A lot of it, impacted, and in both ears.”

Frank stared. “But I use swabs! Right after showering!”

“That’s your problem,” Gengaro said. “You were just pushing it further and further into your ears, but we can fix that.” He turned to the nurse. “Standard irrigation, please,” and she nodded before switching on a small machine before opening a bottle of saline and pouring it into a tank on the machine. She opened a small packet of white powder and mixed it into the water.

“What are you going to do?” Frank asked.

“Clean out your ears,” the rat told the bat in a reassuring tone. “The nurse is warming up a mixture of water and bicarbonate of soda. It’ll loosen the blockage and flush it out.”

“And that’s all that was wrong?” Frank asked. Gengaro nodded, and the bat gave a deep sigh of relief. “I was worried that it might be something serious,” he said.

“After we flush your ears,” the rat said, “we’ll give you a hearing test to make sure there isn’t anything else. Now, I’ll leave you in Marcie’s paws.”

“Thanks Doc.” The rat nodded and left the exam room.

Marcie was a slightly younger orange tabby feline. She smiled at Frank as she got out a towel and a plastic bowl. “Which ear do you want done first?”

“The right, please.”

“Okay. Drape this towel over your shoulder and hold the bowl on your shoulder and under your ear,” she explained as she gave him the items. “You will have to tip your head a little – yes, like that.” She checked a gauge on the machine, hit a switch, and Frank could dimly make out the sound of machinery. “Now, the water will feel cold at first, but it should warm up fast.”

“Okay.”





end