ME AND MY BIG EUSTACIAN TUBE –

(A TRUE STORY)

By Des Lavelle Spring 1965

I never feel very bright anyhow when rising from my virgin couch for 6am work, but on the morning in question, things were really blue. A steady throb in my right ear quickly developed into a man-sized ache, and set me guessing that some rabid bug had stormed the tube and set up his H.Q. in th’oul middle ear.

By 10 a.m. I was well and truly ‘ar leath chluais’, and hot-footed to the dearest doctor – let’s call him Doctor A – nearly passing out with the pain en route.

Having examined the lug-hole, Doc A prescribed pills to be taken and drops to be dropped, and the nearest chemist shop did some quick business.

(There is another story here, so follow the court cases in the papers, because since I take exception to the ‘professional ethics’ which prevented the chemist from disclosing to me the precise contents of the goods which I was buying, I have no intention of paying for same.)

Well, I took the pills and dropped the drops, and retired to bed, mightily sorry for myself. The pain eased slightly but deafness increased, and bouts of raving, interspersed with fitful sleep and an odd gape at the telly passed a couple of days with no great improvement. So I took off once more to the nest nearest doctor, Doctor B this time, who contemplated the lughole thoughtfully, gave me a buckshee package of penicillin tablets and the advice to go get me a specialist pronto.

Which I did! With the snow thick on the ground, and no trace of a thread on the tyres, we shot over the county border like a scalded cat to see Specialist C in the fair city of Cork.

C diagnosed acute infection of the middle ear after one peep and prescribed a racecourse-size dose of drug. So we made off to the nearest chemist shop once again with our docked: “16 caps. Ledermycin mgm,150”, which, freely translated, means 16 capsules of pure 24 carat gold dust – or so I gathered from the price.

“Take three today, four tomorrow, three the day after and so on, and your hearing should be coming back by the weekend, and normal in five or six days”. And fair play to C! It worked! After two days all the pain disappeared, and eventually the more vehement four-letter words and like phrases began to penetrate the silence …

Now that the bug is finally beaten, there is time for reflection that he was an expensive boyo:

Medical fees and certs: £5.0.0.
Gold dust capsules £1.18.0
Phone calls 9.0
Gasoline to Cork and back 1.15.0
Penicillin – buckshee -.--.-
Tablets and drops – net paid -.--.-
________
£9. 2.0
________
Add to this, if you like, a fortnight off sick and grounded from diving for six weeks, and the total is nearly as costly as the invasion of Iwo Jima.

All of which brings me to a question which I throw out to the medical men: Assuming that the bug did gain entry as a result of diving an pressure equalisation, would an oral antiseptic or gargle before a dive be worth anything?? After all , £9.2. worth of Jeyes Fluid or Harpic should last a man a lifetime – so long as he resisted the temptation to take pleasure from guzzling the stuff!

Domestic and personal bliss was greatly influenced by the bug too. With th’oul ear at half power we had double the telly volume, which frayed nerves and kept the kids awake all hours of the night. Naturally, next day was hell, and it was a vicious circle too: The more kids howled, the more we turned up the telly, and beamed the good ear on Richard Kimble and the bad ear on local interference!

From the Spring edition of the Curragh’s ‘Diving News ‘ 1965