WORDS:
Darren Clarkson

The one per cent left

I’ve been wearing hearing aids for half a decade. I’ve been having trouble with my hearing long before this.

I knew I had poor hearing, but didn’t know how bad until I was at a family dinner in a restaurant. A table of 12, and I was careful to sit where I could see people’s mouths. I have had this habit for about 10 years. The background noise was normal chatter and music. When the waitress came to take my order, I couldn’t hear her. My partner had to tell the waitress what I wanted. Finger pointing. I remember the embarrassment and spending most of my meal in silence.

I went for a hearing test the next day. I was told I had lost 80% of my hearing in one ear and 60% in the other. Now, five years on, it’s 1% on the left. My surfer’s ear has closed up. My right ear isn’t far behind. My hearing deficit is due to bone growths. Paraphrased from Wiki, but you, dear reader, know all this… It’s been talked about for years: abnormal bone growth within the ear canal – otherwise benign hyperplasias of the tympanic bone – is strongly associated with frequent cold-water and wind exposure. Basically, the ear slowly closes up with small bump after bump. As if a mole were attacking the ear canal.

It’s a realisation that my kayaking career has killed my ears. As a kid, wearing earplugs wasn’t a thing. I remember Shaun Baker getting his ears drilled (one of the most iconic kayakers of my generation) and the slow emergence of the skull cap as a piece of kayaking apparel.

I stopped freestyle and squirting, and river running became my main activity. Big remote challenges. I stopped using my skull cap in the warm weather and didn’t really see the need to plug.

I wanted to hear the rapids.

I wanted to chat with clients and my mates. For me, kayaking and reading rivers have always been about using as many senses as I can; taking sound away changed the way I noticed risk and reward.

I started wearing plugs in earnest when I got hearing aids, but the damage had been done. Over the last five years, my hearing loss and the number of ear infections have increased at an alarming rate. I didn’t really have ear infections before, but now I don’t really seem to have a week without one. I wear earplugs for kayaking, in the shower, and in heavy rain. It’s a constant ritual of ear drops and tablets.

I’m really choosy about when I paddle now. Any drop of water in my ear canal, and I lose more hearing. It’s a balance, and I am beginning to feel alienated from the community I love. Kayaking without hearing, losing one of your senses, feels limiting when it’s something you have relied on.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really struggling with this; it feels like a real loss of identity. I’ve cried, if the truth be told.

So what can I do?
Most will know, even with a modicum of research, that the drill method is used in most cases. A rough treatment: chock the ear back and drill down the ear canal with a Black & Decker (I’m sure other drills are available). Hope the eardrum doesn’t get torn; hope the noise of the drill so close to the eardrum doesn’t cause damage. Have many weeks in recovery and months before the next ear can be done.

From the outside, it seems brutal and painful. Comic Harry Enfield has a surfer’s ear and states he would rather be deaf (I’m sure some of us would agree for different reasons). Most of my friends have had the op. The reviews are mixed. ‘Never again’, ‘Rehab took ages’, ‘It’s worth it to be able to hear again.

Then I know folks who have had the chisel version, where the surgeon chips away the bone growth. It seems less invasive, and recovery is quicker. To find someone on the NHS who can do it is like looking for rocking horse poo; private care costs more than earplugs! If I had a time machine, I would tell my teenage self to wear plugs and a skull cap without exception.