Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Nightmare on Ear Canal
A very scary and traumatic thing happened to me last night, at about 5:00 a.m. I was sound asleep and then I was in that sleep-wake stage where something is bothering you but you don’t quite know what. Then I became aware of a very loud buzzing sound in my ears. I thought it was a mosquito and swatted at it while I was half asleep. The buzzing continued. I kept feeling like the buzzing was coming from my ears so I thought maybe I was imagining it, I shook/slapped both my ears while still almost asleep. The damned buzzing continued. Finally I woke up because I also felt something in my left ear.
To my horror I realized that an insect had crawled into my ear hole and was now buzzing around in there, trapped. It may not sound like a big deal but I was half-asleep and this entire episode had decidedly nightmarish overtones. It’s also a really freaky feeling when you can feel an insect careening around inside your ear, crash landing against the ear canal. The noise of its wings beating was amplified a thousand times and I literally jumped in shock every time it moved because the noise was so loud. I was sorely tempted to crush the little bugger with a swab because that was the first and fastest idea that popped into my head. But, I imagine, the only thing grosser than having an insect in your ear is having squished dead insect parts in your ear. So I had to get it in one piece.
It was then that one of the random bits of information that my brain is home to popped into mind. Year and years ago, when I was sick in my nanis house, I had been bored enough to read the entire collection ancient of Readers Digests in the guest room. Thank God for that! I remembered reading about a woman who had a bee trapped in her ear and who got it out by shining a bright light into her ear; the bee was attracted to the light and moved out towards it. I grabbed my phone, switched on the torch/flash function and held it to my ear. The light seemed to annoy the insect even more, it began to buzz agitatedly and very, very loudly. Then, on the verge of panic, I went and woke my cousin up and told her that she had to shine a torch into my ear right now because there was a bloody insect in there. Luckily, she wakes up fast. As soon as she shone the torch into my ear (I guess she angled the light better than I did), the insect flew out. It was apparently tiny. Little bastard. I will buy lots of Baygon today and exterminate you and your cursed adventurous ilk.
A very scary and traumatic thing happened to me last night, at about 5:00 a.m. I was sound asleep and then I was in that sleep-wake stage where something is bothering you but you don’t quite know what. Then I became aware of a very loud buzzing sound in my ears. I thought it was a mosquito and swatted at it while I was half asleep. The buzzing continued. I kept feeling like the buzzing was coming from my ears so I thought maybe I was imagining it, I shook/slapped both my ears while still almost asleep. The damned buzzing continued. Finally I woke up because I also felt something in my left ear.
To my horror I realized that an insect had crawled into my ear hole and was now buzzing around in there, trapped. It may not sound like a big deal but I was half-asleep and this entire episode had decidedly nightmarish overtones. It’s also a really freaky feeling when you can feel an insect careening around inside your ear, crash landing against the ear canal. The noise of its wings beating was amplified a thousand times and I literally jumped in shock every time it moved because the noise was so loud. I was sorely tempted to crush the little bugger with a swab because that was the first and fastest idea that popped into my head. But, I imagine, the only thing grosser than having an insect in your ear is having squished dead insect parts in your ear. So I had to get it in one piece.
It was then that one of the random bits of information that my brain is home to popped into mind. Year and years ago, when I was sick in my nanis house, I had been bored enough to read the entire collection ancient of Readers Digests in the guest room. Thank God for that! I remembered reading about a woman who had a bee trapped in her ear and who got it out by shining a bright light into her ear; the bee was attracted to the light and moved out towards it. I grabbed my phone, switched on the torch/flash function and held it to my ear. The light seemed to annoy the insect even more, it began to buzz agitatedly and very, very loudly. Then, on the verge of panic, I went and woke my cousin up and told her that she had to shine a torch into my ear right now because there was a bloody insect in there. Luckily, she wakes up fast. As soon as she shone the torch into my ear (I guess she angled the light better than I did), the insect flew out. It was apparently tiny. Little bastard. I will buy lots of Baygon today and exterminate you and your cursed adventurous ilk.
