The Ear

The ear! Most everyone has two of them. They are quite useful. Most importantly they are vehicles for hearing. As we age some of us find our ears failing us a bit. What we hear becomes jumbled up with other sounds around us, and we don’t understand what others are saying. Often our replies  are, “huh”, “what did you say”, “could you repeat that, please”, or if someone is telling a story or explaining why they don’t feel well, we nod our heads, laugh, or give a sympathetic look or whatever response we think appropriate. We then walk away wondering what in the world did they say. The ear is useful for more than hearing.

Both females and males poke sharp objects called ear rings  through their ear lobes. The ears position on the sides of our heads along with our noses support our glasses. The ears are very instrumental in forming our overall appearance. The size and shape of the ears defines what we look like. Some people have very large ears. Some ears tend to bend outward away from the head. Others have tiny ears and then there are just average ears. As men get older hair tends to grow on the ear in different places. Have you ever noticed hair growing out of an older man’s ear? Ears also catch the rays of the sun a little more than other parts of the body. I suppose the nose runs a close second to the ear as far as receiving those dangerous rays. Many of us develop skin cancers on our ears.

Yesterday I had to have surgery to remove a skin cancer. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The surgeon removed a layer of skin, and then I waited in a room with some other old men while that layer of skin was frozen so that it could be examined through a microscope to see if the surgeon got all of the cancer. I waited a little over an hour to find out that I still had more cancer. I went back to have more skin removed and waited some more. Still there was cancer remaining. I went back the third time before my ear was cancer free. The waiting was long, but those other seniors and I had a good time telling our stories which had to be repeated because none of us could hear.

The experience wasn’t too painful, but I don’t want to do it agin. From now on I am going to protect these old ears of mine with sunscreen, and by wearing a hat. If a skin cancer goes undetected it will eat away the tissue in that area going deeper and deeper. I can imagine my ear getting so bad that it would have fallen off. I want to keep both of my ears, hair and all. Someone told me last night about a man who actually lost one of his ears. He did get a prosthetic ear which was magnetized. Magnets were implanted in the side of his head and in his fake ear.  He could pop that ear on and off anytime he wanted. That would be pretty neat. I thought how funny it would be to pull your ear off when a waitress asks you what you want to drink, hold it up to her and yell, “What did you say?”