Wallace Lee, from Dorset, UK, chalked up his increase in hearing problems to a career in aviation, but his issue turned out to be much more basic: He had an earplug lodged in one ear for five years.
Lee explained what happened to the BBC:
Five years ago when I was visiting my family in Australia I bought these little earplugs that you can put different attachments in, depending on the noise you want to phase out on an aircraft.
One of these little attachments had lodged in there and it had been in there ever since.
I have so many questions here.
Did he not notice when it got stuck in his ear? Did he think it was going to fall out on its own? Did he forget about it?
Why did it take him 5 years to do anything about it?
So after 5 years of thinking he was losing his hearing in one ear, and presumably 5 years of his wife nagging him to get his hearing checked, he decided to buy a home endoscope kit.
I know you were expecting me to say he finally decided to go to the ENT, but no, he's a real man, so he performed his own checkup.
With the endoscope kit, he could see that there was in fact a foreign object in his ear canal, so he finally called in the professionals.
Lee explained that the doctor was quickly able to remove the portion of the earplug with tweezers:
Instantly I could hear everything in the room. The fog that was in my head for all those years went and left - and I could hear perfectly well.
It was just such a relief... it's like hearing correctly for the first time all over again.
