Well, am I shamefaced this morning...I was in the local leisure centre in Putney yesterday evening with a fantastic student who was flying through all of his theory. Time to get in the pool and finish off confined dives 4 and 5. Piece of cake thought I. We'll be done in an hour thought I.
The DM with me gave me the heads up that the chap had had trouble equalising previously, fine, no probs, we would go down nice and slowly. Got to about 2.5m in the dive pit of the pool, and he was having a few problems, but we got through them, and knelt at the bottom, at about 3.5m. Then, my left ear starts playing up, so I leave the chap on the bottom with the DM, and ascend about a metre to clear my ear, which I manage, and descend again nice and slowly, no problems, and we finish the 6 skills he had left to do.
We get out of the water at about 10pm, I'm still feeling fine, if a little sleepy by this point, and make it home for just after 11pm. The minute my head hits the pillow, I start feeling the most excruciating pain ever in my right ear, so not even the one I was having trouble with. Nothing helped, painkillers, moving, not moving, changing sides, I didn't sleep a wink all night, and by about 3.30am was ready to call an ambulance, but dismissed that idea with the thought that they wouldn't come out for an earache!
Got up this morning, took some more painkillers, and the pain eased enough for me to go into work, although the pressure changes from riding the tube made me feel sick and dizzy, and I fell over and broke the heel on my shoe.
Called the LDC, went in to speak to the lovely Dr Firth, who diagnosed me with a Grade 3 barotrauma - bleeding behind the ear drum that has caused it to bulge horribly. He has no idea how it happened, I have no idea how it happened. If it was the left ear, that would make sense, but the good doctor just said that there was some scar tissue in my right ear, possibly from an ear infection as a child that I don't remember, that has weakened that ear. I'm now out of the water for 3 weeks, and have to avoid any pressure changes.
Answers on a postcard as to how this happened? And a warning to people that even the shallowest pools can cause damage...