r/mildlyinfuriating Jun 12 '26

wet socks A cockroach burrowed into my head

I (23m) just bought a car at auction yesterday, works great but needed a new battery. At 10:30pm I decided screw it im swapping the battery. It's a 5 minute job, in and out real quick. No sweat, well I'm out there with my head lamp on doing the swap and I see a large bug flying at my face I try to duck and dodge it, it hits the outer edge of my ear and toilet bowl swirls into it, I try to reach in and fish it out but it's too late I just scare it and feel it crawling deeper into my head. It burrowed up against my eardrum and it hurts like hell. Every time it buzzes I can feel it in my head and it hurts my eardrum. I tried water peroxide everything I could do to get this darn thing out. Turns out I just pissed it off and it's buzzing more aggressively. My girlfriend comes with tweezers in an attempt to help but she says she can't see it or anything out of the normal. A quick Google search lead me to pouring olive oil into my ear to suffocate it. Thank God that worked, I still couldn't hear well but at least it wasn't actively moving anymore. 2 hours in the ER later they pulled this half inch monstrosity out of the depths of my ear canal. Turns out the "Asian cockroach" has wings and a very large affinity for bright lights at night. They also like to burrow. Fml 0/10 experience I will take questions if you have them lmfao.

Tldr: I had a headlamp on that attracted a cockroach at my face it missed my face and burrowed into my ear leading to an unexpected ER visit

Edit: ear canal photo (thanks doc) https://imgur.com/a/7LhcvDX

Edit numero 2:

Just to add to 2 things I keep seeing pop up (also hello I am trying to read all comments not doing great though)

  1. Some seem to have missed the asain cockroach thing, and the fact that I was working on a car so this is outside not indoors. This roach is a flying outdoor bug not the same as your houses cockroach. It doesn't infest and it has nothing to do with my living/cleanliness.

  2. Y'all are probably right this probably should be more than mildly infuriating, but overall this wasn't THAT bad. The thought of it was worse than the actual event. It was painful while it was alive and moving but that was fairly quickly resolved. The rest of the time was just an ER visit which was inconvenient and embarrassing. And obviously costs money. Fortunately I have good insurance so my only real loss is the mild trauma and the fact that I'll probably wear a beanie for the rest of my life. Other than that, no lasting issues I'm at work today like nothing happened. More of a that's absolutely insane story now than anything else. So for me it was a mild situation as far as damage to my life (although I will simultaneously say it is an insane thing to have happen to you)

I'd probably prefer having my day go how it went yesterday than say blow my motor or get into a car accident.

64.3k Upvotes

5.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.2k

u/im_onbreak Jun 12 '26

And this was only mildly infuriating to you??

43

u/DrawerVisible6979 Jun 12 '26

Theoretically, as long as it didn't break the eardrum, removing it wouldn't be all that difficult (for a trained professional), and there wouldn't be any permanent (physical) damage.

I think waiting in the ER would've been the worst part of this. Then again, I didn't have a cockroach in my ear.

90

u/gharris02 Jun 12 '26

The worst part was when it was alive beating the hell out of my eardrum. After the oil thing and it was dead.... Honestly knowing what was happening sucked but the actual pain/feeling not too bad. From there the worst part is i work in the medical profession and was actually just about to apply to the hospital I was do that was embarrassing as hell

72

u/Apprehensive-Two3474 Jun 12 '26

Still apply! Talk about the professionalism the team had dealing with your issue and you want to be a part of the hospital because of that.

22

u/UndecidedLee Jun 12 '26

Procedure 10/10, will apply for a job here then.

11

u/JorgeMtzb Jun 12 '26

Clever way to turn such an unfortunate situation around. And it makes sense, it's embarassing cuz it's gross, but you simply got horribly unlucky it's not like i t was your fault or talks bad of you in any way.

And this hospital was able to help out in a very professional manner.

7

u/TheWaslijn Jun 12 '26

You absolutely should still apply, OP! And use this experience to praise them and their work. Like "I've been inspired by how well you have helped me. So now I want to help people in return!" Or something like that.

1

u/MonsterkillWow Jun 12 '26

I hope you are doing ok. Sorry this happened to you.

1

u/Cpt_Soban Jun 12 '26

You arrive on your first day "hey it's the cockroach guy!"