Here’s one solution. That works sometimes…ear plugs. Photo: WSL
Surfer’s Ear used to be a thing I never quite believed in, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, or the Loch Ness Monster, or John John’s beard. I used to look at the strings hanging from Tom Carroll’s ruddy ginger ears and smirk. How foolish, I thought, to be shoving things in your lugs to go surfing. Some surfers even stuffed Blu-Tack in their ears, but there was no way I was doing that. I still remember the horror of my formative schooling when Rebecca Turner got an eraser jammed up her nose and had to go to the hospital. That day I vowed not to stuff anything into orifices that weren’t designed to be filled. I’ll take my chances without ear plugs, I thought.
Then I went deaf.
“What’s that you say, dear?”
“DEAF, Granny. I’M FUCKING DEAF.”
“Oh I see. No, I’m fine, thank you. I have plenty of milk.”
Being deaf is nothing short of abject misery. I say this with the greatest of respect for any deaf readers.
I know I’m only temporarily deaf, but it’s bloody awful and I feel cry, cry sad for myself.
Surfer’s Ear, or Exostosis, to give it its Sunday name, is a condition that is somewhat mysterious though more common than you might imagine. The word “exostosis” comes from Greek, meaning “new bone.” Long-term exposure to cold water causes abnormal bone growth in your ear and narrows the ear canal. This can lead to pain, impaired hearing, and greater chance of ear infections. The smaller the ear canal, the harder it is for water to drain out during and after surfing. Dirty seawater lingering in your ears means game on for the bacteria that it contains, resulting in deeply unpleasant symptoms for you.
The mysterious aspect of Surfer’s Ear is that medical professionals aren’t quite sure why it happens. Indeed, unless you are living in a coastal community where doctors are used to seeing the symptoms, it is highly likely you could be misdiagnosed.
I can still hear in my left ear, for now. The doc says that the exostosis is actually worse in my left ear, but my right had become infected (thank you very much sewage output of small Scottish village). Further cheery news was that this is likely to happen regularly from now on.
With treatment (but thankfully no operation at this stage) I should get my hearing back in 6-8 weeks. Wonderful.
“Can I take my dog to work?” I asked.
“But you’re not blind.” The doc answered, callously.
“I know that. I said, but deaf misery loves deaf company, and my dog likes to play at being deaf.”
Which reminds me, a loss of hearing can have domestic benefits. I can’t hear snarky, wifeish remarks anymore, or at least I can pretend I didn’t. And I don’t seem to hear the baby crying at night.
But facetiousness aside, you should wear earplugs, because this is horrible. Trying to have a conversation is frustrating. Being in a group or somewhere with lots of background noise is disorientating. I don’t think I appreciated just how much having two ears mattered. Apparently, we isolate different sounds with each ear, allowing us to process multiple sounds at once. This has become horribly clear to me.
Anyway, the endgame is that a surgeon with a massive fuckoff drill will bore through the bone growths in my ear canals. Either that or they’ll chisel it away. So I’ll look forward to that. In the meantime, I’ll be the guy in the line-up with the ear plugs hanging down like tampon strings (with apologies to Tom Carroll and his wise ginger face).
Editor’s note: Read more from JP Currie here. And if you’d like to read about more personal struggles with weird, surf-related medical complications, here’s a good one about having a pterygium surgery.
