Oh, My Ear!

There was a little detail I forgot to mention about this Sunday's and Monday's swims. My right ear really wasn't very happy during them.

Sunday, I woke up with some mild pain in my ear. I waited a few hours to start my swim - and decided to forgo my amusing efforts at flip-turns. My ear felt better after the 2.5 miles and I was able to completely forget about it during my neighborhood Labor Day food and wine extravaganza.

Monday morning, my ear was still uncomfortable, but wasn't hurting. At the guppy swim, I spent a lot of time doing a pathetic Carol Burnett - and opening and closing my jaw really wide to keep my ear popping and clear.

By Monday night, all symptoms seemed to disappear. Yesterday - nothing.

This morning, I had a short lesson with Ironwoman Canada. Everything went well - all seemed fine. She told me to skip the Masters swim scheduled for the evening. Which seemed like a gift until about 4:00 pm today - when my right ear started throbbing again. And then the directive was more a relief.

So, my guess is there is something going on with my ear (Brilliant, huh?). Based upon previous experiences, probably some type of wax build up. (Lovely, huh?) But given the same previous experiences - and my lack of enthusiasm for going to the doctor - I am going to wait until after Patriot to address - as the whole wax removing process was a mess the last time I tried it myself.

In the meantime I am chewing and contorting as much as possible to pop away the discomfort. So far, so good.