Hi. I'm deaf in my right ear.

See how awkward that sounds? This is something I've always struggled with. Whenever I meet someone new, I wait and wait to tell them about my hearing problem. And when I finally do tell them, they often look at me, disbelieving, and ask lots of questions like "Totally deaf?"

Let me explain...

The realization began slowly. When I was five, I remember talking to my grandpa on the phone and trying to switch ears, but whenever I switched to my right ear, I couldn't hear anything Grandpa said. Hmmm...
Then, later, my schools started giving us these tests where we'd sit in a room with a person with a clipboard, wearing headphones that made everything sound funny and far away. The person would tell us to listen and raise our left hand when we heard a sound on the left and raise our right hand when we heard a sound on the right. I listened. I didn't hear anything. I looked at the person. They looked slightly puzzled. Worried I'd get in some sort of trouble if I didn't react, I raised my right hand. The person looked pleased. They wrote something down. I felt relieved.

Every time I took one of these tests, I got better at pretending to hear. I began to delude myself into thinking that nothing was wrong with me and that it was no big deal. Until, finally, sophomore year I decided that I was tired of pretending. This was a problem and I wanted it fixed. So, this time, when I took the test, I raised my left hand whenever I heard a sound. My right hand stayed down. The person looked at me, puzzled. Was wasn't I raising my right hand? They wrote something down. They looked at me and waited. They wrote something down again. They told me to take off the headphones. "Thank you," they said, still giving me that look. Was it that serious?

Later, my mom got a letter telling her that I had failed the hearing test. She asked me about it and I told her the truth. At first, she found it hard to believe me. Then she set up an appointment for me at the Ear, Nose & Throat clinic.
The doctor there was very nice. She set me up in a booth with headphones on. She sat behind a glass window and smiled at me. "Say yes when you hear something." I did. Infrequently. "Do you hear anything in your right ear?" she asked, still smiling cheerfully, trying not to scare me.
"I sometimes feel tingly vibrations," I said. "I don't hear, but I feel slight vibrations."
"Okay," she said. "Raise your right hand if you feel a vibration, okay?" I did when I did. The doctor smiled. "Okay."

The doctor told my parents that I had indeed completely lost my hearing in my right ear. She said it must have been brought on by the fever and ear infection combination I had when I was two years old. So that was it. I was deaf. Permanently. And nothing could change it. Well, one surgical implant could, but that costs thousands of dollars. My parents said maybe someday. Until then...

Most of the time, this loss of hearing doesn't bother me. I can still hear perfectly in my left ear, so I usually hear things. The only time it's really difficult is when there's something loud on my left side and someone's trying to talk to me on my right. I always make sure to walk to the right of my friends so I can hear them. I say "what?" a lot and I get the feeling it annoys some people. But there's nothing I can do, so there's no point in worrying about what they think. I have a set of special MONO headphones that work for the most part. Sometimes, however, whole verses are left out. I can't listen to "Space Oddity" in MONO. But without MONO, I'd never be able to listen to music with headphones.

Telling people about this has always been difficult for me. Not only because it seems like such a random thing to say, and it's fairly uncommon, but also because of the way a lot of my friends adapt to it. It's nice that they try, but I've noticed a lot of times that they will talk extra loud and treat me unusually because of it. I know that they mean well and they're just trying to help me, but sometimes it depresses me beyond words.

Still, this is just another little thing that makes me special.