So ends Colin Jost’s infection-filled dalliance as Olympics surfing correspondent

Jost delighted fellow but more experienced Olympics correspondents Mike Tirico and Maria Taylor with self-deprecating updates on his various misadventures in the Olympic medical tent, an area he believes he spent more time in than the athletes. In one late-July dispatch, seated on a beach lounger with his butt fully submerged in water and injured toesies dry as a bone, Jost dropped yet another medical crisis on an unprepared viewing public: He has an ear infection.

“I woke up this morning and added ear infection to my growing list of ailments,” Jost reported. “I’m not on three different medications—four if you include Pina Coladas. My new goal is to leave here with as many infections as there are olympic events.”

This all started last week while surfing the heavenly waves in beautiful Tahiti where Jost cut his foot on a coral reef. The injury was treated by medical professionals who warned him not to stand in place as ants would attempt to crawl inside the wound, forcing him to dance around what he called “a rural circus” overrun by chickens. He also nearly stepped on a poisonous stonefish. Speaking to Tirico, Jost says doctors warned him not to get his foot wet because of the “coral reef infection,” and he can’t get his head wet because of the “inner-ear infection.” Of course, “that doesn’t mean my torso and waist can’t enjoy the pool.” All of this, however, makes covering surfing difficult.

So ends the trials of “the only person in the world that has made paradise tragic and difficult to deal with,” as NBC Sports’ Maria Taylor put it. At the very least, Jost has some new material. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” he joked. “To peck at the staph infection in my foot.”