Feel free to clutch your own head.
For a couple of days, I was having real trouble with my right ear. You know the sound of wind blowing on the other end when you're on the phone? Something like that would happen inside my ear every so often, for a little more than a second at a time. It was loud, but below the pain threshold. Distracting as hell, no matter what you're doing.
What really irritated me is that I couldn't pin down a reason. There's been more than a little storming going on here, so Cimmy offered that it could be the wild shifts in barometric pressure. I didn't have any other symptoms, so infection was really unlikely. I'd been to see They Might Be Giants a couple weeks ago in Kansas City, but come on, I'm not so old that I'd suffer damage from that. Besides, I could hear just fine for the most part.
Yesterday I was at Brett and Scott's. Their complex has a pool, so they went for a quick dip. I didn't feel likes borrowing shorts or showing off my pastiness, so I sat poolside and we talked. The rushing, fluttering sound hit my ear and I did what most people do to plug an ear-I pressed my tragus down with the end of my finger until it stopped a moment later.
Brett and Scott looked at me quizzically, since I'd made an irritated grunt. I explained the problem I'd been having, then noticed a silverfish on the concrete. In the space of instantly, I thought:
That hadn't been there before. Silverfish don't hang around swimming pools. They hang around in my house sometimes, though.
A silverfish had crawled into my ear canal.
That I haven't had a problem since has pretty much confirmed this. Brett refuses to believe it, which is understandable, but it definitely happened. Silverfish are harmless, by and large, but I'm still calling my landlord.
What really irritated me is that I couldn't pin down a reason. There's been more than a little storming going on here, so Cimmy offered that it could be the wild shifts in barometric pressure. I didn't have any other symptoms, so infection was really unlikely. I'd been to see They Might Be Giants a couple weeks ago in Kansas City, but come on, I'm not so old that I'd suffer damage from that. Besides, I could hear just fine for the most part.
Yesterday I was at Brett and Scott's. Their complex has a pool, so they went for a quick dip. I didn't feel likes borrowing shorts or showing off my pastiness, so I sat poolside and we talked. The rushing, fluttering sound hit my ear and I did what most people do to plug an ear-I pressed my tragus down with the end of my finger until it stopped a moment later.
Brett and Scott looked at me quizzically, since I'd made an irritated grunt. I explained the problem I'd been having, then noticed a silverfish on the concrete. In the space of instantly, I thought:
That hadn't been there before. Silverfish don't hang around swimming pools. They hang around in my house sometimes, though.
A silverfish had crawled into my ear canal.
That I haven't had a problem since has pretty much confirmed this. Brett refuses to believe it, which is understandable, but it definitely happened. Silverfish are harmless, by and large, but I'm still calling my landlord.