At the age of 5, the doctors discovered I was deaf only from the right ear. My right ear is 100% deaf. Dead. Nothing can be done.

 

It all started when I was at my grandparents' house. My mom called and wanted to talk to me. So my grandmother gave me the phone, she put it on the right ear and everytime I kept putting it on the left ear. Grandmother put it back on the right ear... No, I wanted it on the left ear. That's when she realized there probably was something wrong. We went to the hospital and after a lot of tests, they finally gave my parents a diagnosis: I was deaf. That didn't really change anything for me, I didn't even know what it was like to hear with two ears.

 

There are good sides to this, like my left ear is more developed than normal people with two ears. I can hear sounds that normal people can't hear. The best thing is when my parents are grounding me, I just put my left hand on my ear, pretending I'm listening. I'm actually blocking my ear and thinking about something else... Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to work anymore... They found out about the trick...

 

But there are also bad sides, I got problems hearing. If there is noise around, I can't hear with only one ear. Either the noise has to stop or the person has to repeat until I finally understand exactly what they're saying.

 

I learned to live with it. For me, it is normal because I never knew and I'll never know what it's like to hear with two ears :o)