Memory piece

The Twig in the Ear saga

Did I ever tell you that I used to play rugby? Possibly not, it was so long ago…

Sydenham Rugby with those red and blue outfits that I thought were fabulous.

Then, the Twig in the Ear saga happened.

*

My brother and I were playing one-on-one rugby in the driveway.

Edinburgh Street, Spreydon. A two-storey house: a forbidding exterior and thick bushes around the front of the property.

I went for the goal line, and my brother tackled me into the bushes. I felt pretty sore. *

Once I picked myself up, I had this shooting pain in my ear. My parents told me that it looked swollen, and to put ice on it. Then I watched the League match. This was the season that the Warriors made the finals. I think that day was a Roosters vs. Warriors clash. *

After that we went to have dinner with my oldest brother and his girlfriend (now wife); my ear was still sore, and it was getting worse. So we went to the Emergency Room, and it turned out that there was a tiny twig that had gotten lodged in my ear and had pierced my eardrum. 👂🏻👂 *

I was rushed into surgery, they saved my hearing. I had a protective mould that I wore as my eardrum healed; this experience allowed me to experience being partially deaf for a month, which sucked almost as much as my first few months in Italy. That was a sad, lonely time too.

*

That was far from the first - or the last - life-threatening accident in my life, but that was the most traumatic injury, alongside my accident on the slide in Milan where I sliced my dick up on these rocks after falling off a slide.

This one was traumatic because my parents ignored me for ages. Plus I felt like my brother lorded it over me when I was recuperating, despite it being his fault that it happened. For example, he literally ate my ice cream that I was supposed to have after the surgery. 🤣