Toby dressed in silence—jeans and a polo shirt that was getting a bit tight in the shoulders. He didn’t argue.
Breakfast was a somber affair. Linda put a bowl of generic cereal in front of him and stood by the counter, nursing a mug of black coffee.
“If the doctor asks about home, you tell her everything is fine,” Linda warned. “I don’t need some social worker breathing down my neck because you’re acting out.”
The drive to the suburban medical center was quiet. The autumn morning was gray and drizzly, the kind of weather that made everything feel dampened. The waiting room was packed with toddlers with runny noses and tired-looking parents.
“We need to see Dr. Miller. Toby has an ear issue,” Linda told the receptionist.
“Do you have an appointment? We’re booked solid today,” the woman replied without looking up from her screen.
“It’s an emergency. He was bleeding last night,” Linda insisted, her voice rising just enough to be noticed.
After forty minutes, they were ushered into an exam room. Dr. Miller, a woman in her sixties with a kind but weary face, entered with Toby’s chart.
“What’s going on with our guy today?” she asked, sitting on her stool.
“His ear. He’s been digging at it again,” Linda said, pointing to Toby.
Dr. Miller put on her glasses and looked at Toby’s ear with a small flashlight. “Well, there’s definitely some inflammation and some superficial lacerations. Toby, can you tell me what it feels like?”
Toby glanced at Linda, then whispered, “It feels like something is living in there. It moves and makes noise.”
“He’s got a vivid imagination,” Linda cut in quickly. “He does this when he’s stressed at school.”
The doctor looked deeper and shook her head. “I don’t see any foreign objects. It’s likely a bit of impacted wax or a mild case of swimmer’s ear causing a ‘full’ sensation. I’ll refer you to an ENT just to be safe, but try to keep him from scratching.”
The ENT, Dr. Henderson, was a man who looked like he had seen a thousand ears that day. He was efficient and clinical.
“Lean back, Toby,” he said, reaching for his tools.
He spent five minutes peering into the ear with a microscope. “There’s a significant wax plug deep in the canal. That’s probably what’s causing the ‘movement’ sensation—it shifts when he moves his jaw. We’ll flush it out.”
The procedure was uncomfortable. The warm water pressure made Toby’s head swim, and he felt nauseous. He gripped the edges of the chair. But as the water drained, the movement inside didn’t stop—it became frantic, as if the occupant were drowning.
“There we go,” Dr. Henderson said, showing a small tray with a dark brown clump. “That should do it. You’re all clear.”
“But I still feel it,” Toby said, his voice trembling.
“That’s just residual irritation. It’ll fade in a day or two. Use these drops,” the doctor said, already writing the next prescription.
But the relief never came. A week later, the symptoms were worse. Desperate to prove he was “fine,” Linda took him to a high-end private clinic in the city, paying the steep co-pay out of her savings.
Dr. Sarah Vance was a specialist with a pristine office and the latest tech. She listened to Toby without interrupting.
“It’s been five years,” Toby told her. “It clicks. It scratches. It hurts at night.”
Dr. Vance performed a thorough exam with a digital otoscope, projecting the image onto a large screen. The canal looked clean, the eardrum intact.
“Physically, everything looks perfect,” she said, turning to Linda. “Tell me, has Toby had any major life changes? Any trauma?”
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