Zane Wedding lay awake for three nights, troubled by an ear that seemed to be blocked with water. It was actually a cockroach.
Zane Wedding Photo: Michael Craig / New Zealand Herald
Wedding tells Morning Report he first noticed some ear disturbance late one Friday night.
"When I woke up in the middle of the night I knew my air was blocked and it just felt like water. I was shaking my head like a wet dog and no relief."
Because Wedding had been swimming that day, he thought that was all it was.
But when the sensation was still there in the morning, Wedding went straight to the doctor.
"When my ears are blocked that way it really infuriates me. So the annoyingness sent me straight to the doctor that morning."
The cockroach pulled from Zane Wedding’s ear. Photo: Zane Wedding
The doctor flushed his ear out and told him to come back if he'd had no relief by Tuesday.
Saturday and Sunday nights were no fun for Wedding.
"I would lie on my side in a way that felt comfortable but the whole time I could just feel water rolling round in my ear."
At the doctor's suggestion, he'd been periodically pointing a hairdryer into his ear for a couple of days to assist the drying-out process.
On Monday he realised that wasn't working and made an appointment with an ear specialist.
She checked the interior of one of Wedding's ears and said it was fine, but taking a look into the other one she said 'Oh my god'.
"I was like hey, what happened? She said 'hey… i think you've got an insect in your ear'."
The cockroach that had crawled into Wedding's ear took three to four minutes to extract, Wedding says.
"We had a suction gun on it - couldn't get it that way… couldn't get it with the first set of tweezers then eventually she tried another set of tweezers."
The cockroach eventually slid out of Wedding's ear whole, and he felt a 'pop' as soon as it was pulled free.
Reflecting on the experience, the knowledge that what sounded like sloshing water was likely a cockroach kicking his eardrum is the most sickening part of the story for Wedding.
"I was so thankful to have it removed, it was instant relief."
