Eh? What's that you say?

I would like to thank all of you for sticking with me during these past few unimaginative posts. And thanks to those of you that have mapped yourself. It's nice to put a blip with the name. Even nicer when you can put a face with a name, but I suppose it isn't practical to meet all my blogger friends when we are so scattered around. I have been fortunate to meet a few though and they are just as wonderful as their blogs! (You know who you are ;)...).

I thought I'd share a little something about myself that some, namely my children, seem to think is fairly amusing. No smirks from the peanut gallery! As most of you know (If you read my 100 things), I am deaf in my right ear. This was a permanent result of having a brain tumor removed 5 years ago. So this was an overnight thing for me. It's not as if I was slowly losing it over the years. This has it's pro's and con's.
Let me first share the con's with you....
1) I have an extremely difficult time locating where a sound is coming from. This is where my children find it funny. I will be standing in the kitchen and my cell phone or even the cordless house phone will ring. The phone may be sitting on the counter right next to me but I can't tell that is where the ring is coming from. I will turn in circles and walk around trying to locate the origin of the ring while my dear family watches in amusement. The other day I could not find my cell phone so I dialed the number from my house phone to locate it and I heard the ring but for the life of me could not locate it! I would walk around till the ring got louder then as is diminished I would turn around and start back the other way. I would go to the stairs to see if it was ringing upstairs then to the basement door. I finally located it in the mudroom in the pocket of my coat. You can't imagine how frustrating it can be sometimes!! My children have learned when we go to a large, crowded place and they call me they will holler out their location based on the position of the arms of a clock. "Mom! Over here! 3:00!" So I know to look 90 degrees to my right. Sounds funny, but it works. For the most part it doesn't really interfere with my life except for the fact that many times I miss a phone call because I can't find the phone in time. Thank goodness for caller ID. I just call them back. I really need to get an old fashioned, corded phone put on the wall.
2) Another disadvantage is hearing things in a loud room. When you have both ears you don't realize it but one acts as a filter. You can focus on your conversation and everything else is filtered out the other ear. There really is something to the old adage "In one ear and out the other"! Having only one good ear ALL the noise goes into it and is mixed up with the conversation you are trying to have.
3) And talking on the phone you can't listen to someone else in the background trying to say something to you because your one good ear is in the phone. I have to share this with you also....I have always been right eared, meaning this is the ear I used to talk on the phone. For quite a while after my surgery I would still answer the phone with my right ear. I would answer "Hello"...."Hellooooo!".....after no response I would hang up only to have it ring immediately again. It took a few times but I finally learned to answer with my good ear. At work we have 6 or more phones, each with a different extention, lined up behind the counter spaced about 15 - 20 feet apart next to registers. The only way I can tell which one is ringing is by looking at the light to see which one is blinking.
4) Lastly, and I think this is the most frustrating, driving in the car. When sitting in the drivers seat my good ear is on the side of the window. So anyone sitting in the passenger seat (or the back) has to practically holler for me to hear them. Forget having the radio on and trying to carry on a conversation. It just ain't gunna happen.

Now for the advantages (yes! there are some!)
1) When I happen to go to bed at the same time as my husband (which doesn't happen often because of our work/sleep schedules) and he wants to watch tv, I can just lay on my left side and put my good ear into the pillow and the tv doesn't bother me.
2) When my husband snores, same thing, turn to the left and zonk right out. This becomes a disadvantage in the morning though when I don't hear my alarm! Oops. Think work will accept that excuse?
3) And last, if ever I forget to do something someone asks me to do or just don't get around to it ie: kids or hubby, I can always say "Oh, I'm sorry, I must not have heard you. You must have been on the wrong side" Ok, bad excuse, but what the hey!