I know most people will say that kids have selective hearing, and that's what my mom thought when I claimed that I hadn't heard her. My older sister had done it, so why wouldn't I? Surely I learned it from her.

Never in her mind would she have thought that I actually couldn't hear her.

Since I was a baby I have had issues with my ears. Multiple chronic ear infections, tubes to let them drain, etc. I still have issues with them and probably will the rest of my life. There's no rhyme or reason for it, it just happens.

The real consequences of eleven years of ear problems wouldn't surface until the spring of my fifth grade year. I was having chest pains, having played volleyball a little too enthusiastically and stretching the muscles in my chest a little bit too much, and was taking way too much ibuprofen for the pain every four hours considering I was eleven. So I went to have a second opinion.

They found something wrong with my ear, didn't know exactly what, and so I ended up seeing my regular Ears, Nose and Throat doctor. He was able to tell us exactly what was wrong, something that astonished everyone who was told.

With the mixture of ear infections and the tubes, my left eardrum had eroded away. About 80-85% of it was gone, no longer there at all. After testing, it showed that my hearing was below the normal hearing range. This made everyone think to how well the elementary school's hearing test machine was working, because I had gone seven years without any of my hearing deficiency being noticed; everyone believed I had normal hearing.

Cool side note: my mom tested a theory of hers while we were waiting to see my doctor for the second time. She was talking to me normally, face to face, and then covered her mouth. My ability to tell what she was saying went down significantly. Nobody had been able to catch on partly because my brain had already made up for the loss of hearing by giving me the ability to read lips subconsciously. Brains are amazing, huh? My mom felt so bad though, thinking about all the times I had been given a good scolding for not listening to her, mom thinking I was being a snotty kid and trying to get away with stuff by saying I hadn't heard her, when I really hadn't been able to.

I had a surgery to rebuild my eardrum about a week or so before sixth grade started in August. When we were finally able to take off the head gear, which looked like a wrestler's head gear, just over my left ear, and were able to take all the cotton out of my ear, it was like experiencing a new world.

I'm going to be honest, I cried like a baby the first time I heard the clock ticking clearly in my left ear. I cried and ran down the hallway to my mom's room when I was able to hear the radio clearly through my left ear with my right ear down on my pillow. I'm pretty sure I cried when I could hear all the different sounds outside that I previously hadn't heard before because of my lowered hearing range.

I'm not telling you this because I want pity. Instead, I want you to be able to take joy in all the things you do. Take each sound, each smell and sight like it's the first time you're experiencing them. This is a lesson on how we all take so much for granted, how we get so used to certain sights, smells, sounds, feelings.

My mom and I still kind of choke up as we think back to that night I ran down that hallway to her. She constantly says that moment, that look of joy and wonder that I had on my face, is what helped her be able to enjoy every moment more than she had before. She doesn't take things for granted as much anymore.

“The flood of sounds, noises, and voices which suddenly break into the consciousness of the person who has not heard them for years is very much like the first impact of direct sunlight on a person who has lived in a dungeon.” -Attributed to Sidney Blackstone