Blew out my right eardrum last year. When it happened, the sharp high-pitched plucked-string-like sound with impossibly quick decay brought back a memory that this had happened four to five years previously with my left ear, though at the time I did not realize what it was and never went to a doctor for it. This time around I went to an ENT specialist, and with topical antibacterial eardrops, my right eardrum healed fairly well. Post healing hearing testing (yes, an hour long computer based test) showed that the hearing via my right ear shows only normal age-related higher-frequency hearing loss after healing. However, no surprise that hearing via my left ear is significantly more impaired than age-related level in the upper frequencies, showing that without medical help the left eardrum did not heal as well.
Plus, I have untreated sleep apnea, so every morning I wake to the roaring sounds of an ocean in my ears. And all of the time, I can hear a (very distant and subdued) violin section crossed with (an equally subdued) mosquito farm.
Yet here I am hunting for ever more accurate audio gear and contemplating purchasing 192/24 downloads. Perhaps I should spend the money instead on lessons in reading music and buying sheet music, as a backup plan, in case my hearing goes dodo entirely.