Ellis Miller

speaker

51 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 28 Jul

Ellis Miller’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Moth · Feel Good: The Moth Radio Hour · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

When I was little, I believed that babies came from God's factory in the sky, and that the day I went down the assembly line, they were missing a few parts.

One of the parts I'm missing is a tiny piece of bone in my left ear, making me 50% deaf.

Now, growing up, this didn't have a big impact on my life.

I had to sit in the front of the class, even though I was more of a back of the class personality.

I was terrible at the game telephone.

And my mom would take me bird watching and I thought she had superpowers because I could barely hear the birds, let alone find them in the trees.

Now, when I was 30, I started to worry about what would happen as I got older if the hearing in my right ear gradually faded.

So I did some research and I talked to my doctor and he told me about a surgery where they would implant a tiny piece of metal in my ear and restore all of my hearing.

And I was so excited for the possibility to find out what I had been missing this whole time.

So a month later, I had a surgery date.

After the surgery, I had to wait several weeks for my ear to heal before we would even know if it was successful.

So I waited, and I waited, and I went back to work, and I kept waiting.

And one day, I was with a coworker, and I was walking across my office, and I got to the door.

I turned the doorknob, and it creaked.

I turned it again, and I heard this creaking noise.

And I started turning it over and over because I didn't know that doorknobs made sounds when you turned them.

My eyes filled with tears because I had expected things to get louder, but I didn't know there were entire sounds that I had never heard before.

My coworker is watching me standing there turning the doorknob.

And she said what was probably a typical voice, are you okay?

I didn't know what to say, I was really embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I just rushed out of there and I could hear my feet as I walked down the hallway.

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