It was on New Years Eve. I was spending the night with a friend, nothing too exciting, when out of the blue I could not hear out of my left ear. I mean nothing. So being a bit of a worrier, I wanted to fix it ASAP. I went to the washroom and grabbed a Qtip. I figured it was just a little clogged, I would clean it out and that would be that. But the Qtip did nothing. So I went back to what I was doing. It was only a clog, it would clear itself out eventually. But then the pain started. Not a gentle irritation but a painful throbbing. Like, I need to go to the hospital kind of pain. So that is what I ended up doing. I sat in the emergency waiting room as my ear ached. I don't remember how long it took but it was some time before I made it in a room (a first hand experience of just one reason why we need to increase funding to hospitals). There was nothing they could do. They gave me a perscription for some asprin threes, which did little to nothing to help. I had to wait it out. It was a long day after where I could barely sleep. Eventually the pain started to go away in waves and became less and less severe. But even then it still took months before my hearing returned to normal. It was odd showering and hearing the water like it was going through a filter. What I think might of happened was I had a infection that I ended up pushing back with the Qtip into a part of the ear that was smaller and tighter. Which lead to a painful couple of days. So in conclusion, no matter how much you start to panic when you can't hear out of one of your ears, DO NOT stick anything in it. They have that warning on the Qtip box for a reason.
