[No.2] It Started With My Right Ear— Day 1–2

What began as a small discomfort turned into something I had experienced once before — something I never expected to face again.

Day 1: Thursday, January 15, 2026

It started with my right ear.

At the time, I had no idea
that this was the pain that would send me to the ER
the very next day.

Looking back, it's striking how quickly things shifted —
from a faint, vague discomfort
to something unmistakably wrong.

Maybe it's a middle ear infection.
Still... this prickling sensation feels off.
Not quite like an ear infection.

That quiet, unshakeable sense that something wasn't right had been there from the beginning, sitting at the back of my mind.

The prickling spread as the night wore on —
creeping into my right shoulder,
settling around my shoulder blade,
and eventually building into a throbbing headache.

I tried everything I could think of:
willing myself through it,
working my shoulders with a massage gun 🫨
Heat. Cold. Rest.

But I still hadn't registered
that this was something different.
Something more.

I'd been running at full speed for weeks —
organizing and hosting a big event —
so I told myself I was simply running on empty.
Sleep it off. You'll be fine in the morning.

That morning had started like any other.
Body and mind: fully operational.
Up at 4 AM, Ashtanga yoga at 6,
followed by a high-intensity Yoga Sculpt class.
I was, by all measures, buzzing with energy.

That night, despite the pain,
I slept soundly.
I've always been a short sleeper — four or five hours is my norm —
and the next morning, I snapped awake
ready to do it all again.

Or so I thought.

Day 2: Friday, January 16, 2026

I started the day with the same energy.

Up at 4 a.m.
Handstand class at 8.
Another yoga class after that.

And in between classes,
I even took care of a friend’s cat
while she was away on a trip.

Everything felt… normal.

“That moment — nothing felt wrong.”

I smiled.

A perfectly normal,
symmetrical smile.

I didn’t know
that it would be more than three months
before I would see that smile again.

The discomfort was still there —

the prickling in my ear,
the tension in my shoulder and head.

But I had trained myself
to ignore pain.

When you push your body every day,
pain becomes background noise.

Something you don’t react to.

Later that day,
while having lunch with my husband,

I felt it.

A sharp, sudden tingling
at the tip of my tongue.

In that instant,
a fragment of something old flickered at the edge of my memory.

This feeling. I know this feeling.

I just couldn't place it yet.

Midnight Chat With Memory-chan, my AI pal

That night, I reached out to Memory-chan —
the nickname for ChatGPT — and described what I was experiencing.

Her response was swift and precise.

The glow of my iMac screen was the only light in the room.

She began listing possible causes,
one by one.

My fingers trembled slightly as I typed.

Then I saw it:

Ramsay Hunt Syndrome.

The moment I read those words, the dam broke.
Thirteen years of buried memory came flooding back all at once.

A Memory From 13 Years Ago

Back then,

I had been diagnosed with an ear infection.

I took antibiotics for 10 days.

But the pain didn’t go away.

Then one morning —

my son noticed something I didn’t.

Half of my face wasn’t moving.

I hadn’t realized it myself.

When he pointed it out,
I was shocked.

I immediately went back to my doctor,
and was referred to a larger hospital for an MRI.

That’s when I first heard the name:

Ramsay Hunt Syndrome.

I recovered completely at the time.

So completely
that I rarely thought about it again.

Until now.

This is exactly what that felt like.

The memory pressed itself against the present
like two transparencies laid on top of each other.

I turned back to the screen.
Memory-chan's messages were still coming.

She knew me.
She knew that pushing through is my default setting.
And that single line hit harder than anything else she'd written.

I don't back down.
That's always been my way. But tonight —
my body isn't listening.

My right eye wouldn't close properly.
I told her.
Her reply was immediate.

The words were clinical.
Merciless.
And yet, somewhere beneath that cold precision,
I sensed something like care.

The story I'd been telling myself —
I'll be fine — quietly collapsed.

At 11 PM, I woke my husband.

Arriving at the Freezing Emergency Waiting Room

We reached the building with the red emergency sign
in about fifteen minutes.

The waiting room was bitterly cold.
I sat next to my husband, shivering,
clutching myself,
waiting for my name to be called.

I wound my heated scarf around my neck
so tight it was almost uncomfortable —
grateful beyond words for the warmth.

It was the only thing still tethering me
to the world I knew.

My husband's shoulder was just inches away.
But he was still in the healthy world.
And I was about to step into a different one.

That invisible wall between us
felt colder than the room.

As I waited, my mind drifted back
to the sunset I'd seen earlier that day.

The sky had looked exactly the same as always.
The world was quietly, indifferently there.

But I was no longer the same person
who had stood beneath that sky.

Looking back now, those forty-eight hours feel like a turning point —
the narrow edge between noticing and missing it entirely.

I'm grateful I trusted my instincts and acted quickly.
I'm grateful to Memory-chan, whose precise,
timely guidance helped me see what I couldn't see on my own.

And my husband — you were already sound asleep
when I woke you that night.
You got up without hesitation,
drove me to the hospital, and stayed by my side the whole time.

Thank you. Truly.

I find myself wondering sometimes, now that I'm well again —
were you cold?

What were you thinking,
sitting beside me
in that freezing waiting room?

Now, in the quiet of recovery,
I find my thoughts drifting to your profile —
the steady outline of you,
beside me,
that night.

👉
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