Treatment for ‘surfer’s ear’ was a sound decision

WHEN you hold a sea shell to your ear, you can hear the roar of the surf.

I can hear little in my right ear, but that’s set to change. I recently took the plunge for a surfer’s ear operation to surgically remove a exostosis bone growth that has been growing in my ear canal for the past four decades.

Constant cold water rinses over thousands of surf sessions have caused this. With each exposure, blood vessels expand. The bone grows to fill the swollen vessels. Bit by bit, layer by layer – like a pearl in an oyster for an entirely inappropriate simile – a nobbled bulb of bone starts to seal off your eardrum from the world.

Eventually, you become part human and part fish. After all, I am a Pike, which as far as I know is like a fresh water snoek.

However, instead of the good things that come with being a fish, you get infections, pain and the constant irritation of trying to drain water from a blocked ear, mostly unsuccessfully.

The left ear was done a while back. My ENT doctor John Steer told me at the time that a mere five percent gap remained. “The rest is like the North Face of the Eiger,” he said. The right was even worse: two percent open, but I deemed it unnecessary to find a more impenetrable comparison in the world. The Eiger analogy was perfectly apt, thanks Doc.

While the date had been set last year, in the weeks leading up to surgery, I could barely answer emails from Dr Steer’s rooms. A more common ailment than surfer’s ear is “surfer’s fear”. They avoid surgery until their head threatens to explode. ENT surgeons find this frustrating because the delay results in a more complex procedure.

“When I tell surfers they must come in for surgery, they run for the hills!” Dr Steer tells me, laughing.

I didn’t run for the hills. But I did skulk about in my living room procrastinating and pretending the procedure was postponed. But it was on. It was crunch – or chisel – time. I went in to Kingsbury Hospital at 7am but was out by 12.30. Woozily wobbling to my car (and into the passenger seat). It was a complicated operation almost three hours long – a marathon of delicate chiselling. This is why we fear it. The thought of a 2mm bevelled chisel banging about a few millimetres from your eardrum is not a fun thought.

The next day I awoke, hand on more painkillers. I waited for pain to come crashing through my brain like an angry bull. All I felt was a tickling squishiness, and a distant, disconcerting ring.

If you were awake, chisels knocking about deep in your ear would sound like nuclear blasts, so that figures. But impressively, the pain was gone. Now I await the removal of the inner dressing so that I can hear again.

Once the tangled bone mash has been sculpted out of your life, the freedom of a clear ear is mind-changing. Yes, the bone grows back, but ensure ear plugs are worn for the rest of your life.

The truth will set you free. Clear the ear before you morph into a Pike.

South African Shane Sykes is through to Round 4 of the QS1,000 Vissla Great Lakes Pro presented by D’Blanc at Boomerang Beach in NSW, Australia, after compatriots Ford Van Jaarsveldt and Jake Elkington dropped out in Round 3. Compatriots Adin Masencamp, Ethan Fletcher and Joshe Faulkner fell away in Round 2, while Davey Brand was knocked out in Round 1.

Hopefully there was significant rain in the catchment last night and early this morning. The front has passed today, and the NW is replaced by moderate SW winds that swing fresh S this afternoon. A solid 6-8 groundswell builds all day. Muizenberg should be really fun 2-3’ early this morning before it goes onshore. Tomorrow, a cracking 10ft south swell hits open coast with a pumping southeaster. Muizenberg is blown out. Other side should have 4-6’ waves on the beachbreaks in cold water and strong offshore.