Greetings from my hospital bed.

Note: I started writing this post the night I got admitted, but got lazy to finish the post right after so I ended continuing it much later.

Let me just explain briefly on what happened to me recently. Initially, I was probably in the same situation as few of those people who's immune system deteriorate over the last teenage years... I got sick. It started with the usual fever and just the feeling of dying. I didn't wanna get out of bed, but that happens all the time so I assumed it was not a big deal.

3 days before my first final paper - the 28th of May, I came home from our 3am study session with a sudden ear disturbance. Since I've spent the whole night "studying" at my faculty, I was ready to sleep when I got home. But I couldn't. My fever spiked up that morning but that wasn't the worse case, I woke up with a sudden (and horrible) ear pain. The pain was no joke. It literally felt like a stone was pushed into my ear. Rolled on the bed like mad, balled my eyes out until I cannot anymore, Google search and only to find people who can relate to my pain on YouTube yet gave advices I couldn't use, asked my housemates for tea tree oil since people on the internet told me it would work but no one had it so boohoo, placed a heating pad on my ear to shift the pain onto the heat and those are just the few struggles from a bird's eye view.

Sometime around noon, my ears suddenly excrete what happened to be blood. So I ended up with a bloody ear. Ok probably not that extreme, there was blood but slightly watery. Then a real bad headache followed. You know the feeling of seeing the world spinning? Yeah exactly that feeling suffering.

Cut to the chase, I went to the clinic and was prescribed some antibiotic and paracetamol along with an ear drop. Shoutout to Ikha and Yumi for going through all that trouble finding a clinic and sticking through (I know you read this Yuan Min). I just needed to survive the finals week with those prescription before I get a proper checkup at a hospital in my home state.

Finals went by pretty unharmed, though I had trouble listening when people are on my right side talking (since the pain is in my right ear) and whenever someone talks through a microphone, I wished people could just skip the announcements altogether. It was that bothersome. Other than that, no further pain was encountered. Alhamdulillah.

I reached home, told my parents everything I went through in detail and the next day my mum booked a hospital appointment for me. Since we suspected it was an ear infection, going to a physician won't settle things and it was definitely meant for a specialist consultation. Previously, I actually had an ear infection back in 2012. Coincidentally, my mum found the same doctor who did the procedure for my ear back then as she was booking for an appointment in a different hospital. It was like deja-vu. Just in a different time, at a different place.

That doctor told me I had a mucus in my middle ear and it's currently stuck so it couldn't get out the natural way. That thing isn't hardened, it just remain sticky inside. People call it 'glue ear'. Technically, it is behind my eardrum and that was what caused my slight deafness. We found out I had about 30% hearing loss on my right ear because of this (after going through some tests). Usually caused by flu and when it is not treated properly it could end up in the ear since the canals are pretty much connected with the nose. It is more common in children. The doctor said 5% of children usually get this and lol guys, I'm practically called a child.

Also,

Wrong body ke apa /sweat

I ended up agreeing to do a simple procedure of inserting what the doctor called 'gromet' which basically is a tiny hole that allows additional air to aid with the ventilation inside my ear. I got myself admitted due to some circumstances but most of the time, this procedure don't even need the patient to go through admission and could just go under daycare. 

Anyhow, I did get admitted. And let me tell you, this hospital is lowkey a hotel. It's a private hospital currently known as Avisena Specialist Hospital, but previously known as Darul Ehsan Medical Centre (DEMC). From the front desk to the hospital room, yo this place is really out of the usual. They got a freaking bell boy to bring us to the room. How fancy is that?

Not to mention, they're very Muslim-friendly and have one of the best hospital services I've ever seen. The costs too are pretty reasonable for a private service.

The procedure went well and I'm still currently on medication - some pills, ear drop and nasal spray. But I'm all good. My ear is getting better. I am able to hear close to my normal hearing. I still hear some echos but I'm pretty sure it'll get better.

Throughout this whole experience, I honestly had that "I think I'm going deaf" thought. I thought that I might need a hearing aid for real. And maybe put all my sign language knowledge to good use lol.

Due to this, I actually got a gist of what hearing loss felt like and it happened to be very annoying. Imagine able to clearly see someone talking right in front of me but I could barely hear what that person says, then constantly having to ask them to repeat. That really annoys me just as much on top of feeling really sorry. Plus, noises tend to sound louder. Like the noises really overpower the entire space so I hate noisy people even more because of it. Though aku pun bising gak sebenarnya.

That pretty much sums up my whole experience. Stay healthy people. Hospital bills aren't cheap!