By now you've all probably gotten most sick of my rantings about this flu that's laid me low for essentially the whole week, but I'm asking to try your patience a little longer. There's been a development in the past 12 hours that's frankly got me frightened.

The soar throat and such continued to escalate yesterday even as other symptoms appeared to improve, but in direct correlation to my throat, a new issue emerged. My ears began to feel quite plugged. It wasn't a big deal at first, but that continued to intensify throughout the day. In the middle of the night, the plugged feeling transitioned into a painful one with sharp stabs in my eardrums. At around the same time, I began to hear less out of both ears, but the left one in particular. That hearing loss has accelerated throughout the day until now the left ear feels almost entirely blocked.

I had something similar happen once before when I was 15. That time it got so bad that I could scarcely hear people who were standing a foot or two away from me. I even had to strain to hear myself when I played the piano. The only way they could solve the problem was to puncture my eardrums and suck out all the pent up fluid trapped inside (easily the most painful physical experience of my life).

Since the symptoms were similar but with a more rapid progression this time, I decided not to mess about and go straight to an emergency room, which I did with poor Corey in tow (he's sick too). Verdict? It's a virus, they can't do anything about it, just keep doing what you're doing (i.e. fluids and rest and dicongestants like sudafed). I practically begged them to give me an antibiotic in case there's an infection, which I frankly suspect there is (they report the eardrum looks swollen and blocked + my throat is very red and swollen too). I got an antibiotic and I'm going to try it, but I'm so nervous that I'm headed down the same road with my ears. When I can't hear, my whole world changes and it's terrifying. It was remedied last time, but can my ears withstand two similar onslaughts? What if nothing shifts and it takes ages to get a referral to an ear, nose and throat doc?

Thank you for hearing me out, ladies. This freaks me out, and I needed to vent. I hope you understand.

P.S. haircut and all other style-related activities postponed until further notice.