Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Where were the meds before the op?!
Despite a squelching noise when I chew, my surfer’s ear is finally a thing of the past
check it out first.
However, the guy was on the other side of Cape Town, and my op was days away and booked. To be sure, though – no one wants to go into long surgery if they don’t have to – I chatted to a craniosacral osteopath in town.
He said my osteoma sounded too severe for treatment, although he had made a lot of progress with delaying surfer’s ear or soothing its symptions.
I will be returning to him for a general look, and to possibly assist in my recuperation. If your surfer’s ear is not advanced, there is no harm in looking at alternatives.
I went ahead with the op. The anaesthetist was chatty and kindly when she checked in on me at the hospital on Thursday morning. She told me about the anaesthetic and what to expect.
The staff were cheery and bright. Paperwork was checked and triple- checked. The white-lit hallways were spotless as I was wheeled through. The operating theatre looked brand new. Crisply white, and cosy, with multibulbed lights and shiny metal tools and creamy- looking machines and smiling greenclad people, or was it blue?
As I groggily descended into percolating darkness, I saw the ceiling swirl off into the distance. Soon, after a fraction of an eon, it come swirling back, only it was the ceiling of Surgical Ward 2, the post- op place.
The deed was done. After all that, it was over in a flash.
Apparently, the osteoma had extended into my jawbone, which made surgery a bit “tricky”. Sitting now a day afterwards, (yesterday as you read this), my ear feels weird, but not painful.
When I chew, my ear squelches. Other than that, I don’t feel a thing. I have been prescribed with a day’s worth of potent painkilling antiinflammatories, plus a week’s worth of Dolorol Forte.
With enough meds to drop a hippo at 40 paces, I am not about to start worrying. The worst is over. Perhaps they should prescribe meds before the op!
Now it’s just a matter of keeping the wound dry until those autumn swells start creasing the ocean.
Big Wave
CONGRATULATIONS WSL Big Wave Tour Champion Greg Long. Greg won the Red Bull Big Wave Africa at the age of 19 in 2003. Long, now 33, is fast becoming the most decorated big wave surfer in history. He adds this title to eight XXL awards, the Dungeons win, the Eddie Aikau event in 2009, a win at Mavericks and BWT champ in 2012.
Summersurf Challenge
THE Women’s Summersurf Challenge takes place at the Bay of Plenty in Durban tomorrow and several Capetonians are seeded among more than 40 women and girls in the Open, Under-18, U16 and U14 divisions for R20 000 in prize money and Surfing South Africa PST ratings points.
Top seed is current SA champion Heather Clark (Port Shepstone). Hout Bay’s Tanika Hoffman is seeded third, while in the U18s, Natasha Van Greunen, from Muizenberg, is seeded fourth. Summer Sutton from Kommetjie is fourth seed in the U16 division.
Weather Tip
UNFORTUNATELY, road clo- sures for the Cape Town Cycle Tour will not warrant sleeping in your car in the deep south for uncrowded waves tomorrow morning.
Pure glass in the morning. No wind at all, which will be great for cyclists, but the surf looks small.
Might be 2-3’ with clean 1-2’ lines in False Bay. Today, small waves in southerly winds going light SW. Muizenberg could be clean 1’ maybe 2’.