Hey everyone, I'm a 1st year nursing student and I had to drop out of this falls semester (med/surg). The reason for this is that I'm having brain surgery next week to remove a large acoustic neuroma...a benign tumor that has been causing me hearing loss and which is compressing my 4th ventricle and putting pressure on my brainstem. The surgical approach the neurosurgeon wants to do is a translabyrinthe, in which they go through the middle ear. This approach destroys the middle ear, meaning I'll be permanently deaf in that ear after the surgery. He wants to do that approach instead of a retro-parietal approach because I have very little usable hearing in my right ear and apparently the translabyrinthe is the preferred approach for pts like me. Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone here at allnurses has unilateral deafness (for whatever reason). Can you still work effectively if you are deaf in one ear? Do you have any problems with a stethoscope or any other things in the hospital environment? I love what I'm doing and I don't want to give up my dream of being a nurse because of something like this. I'd be crushed if for some reason this precluded me from becoming a nurse. Can you become a nurse with a disability like this? Thanks.