Talk Fusion Associate Elena Shlaneva was born into a normal Russian family. She was the daughter of two loving parents and shared their Pskov home with a brother and twin sister.
Except Elena Shlaneva’s life was anything but normal; she was born deaf.
Her twin – in fact, and everyone else in her family – could hear. In order to deal with her hearing loss, Elena was sent to a special school, which meant she had to live apart from her family. Eventually the geographical and physical isolation took a toll on her.
“I always asked ‘Why was I the only one in my family who was deaf?’ I lived in constant pain,” Elena recalls. “I felt so bad about it, was so often in a bad mood, that I did not even want to live in the world of speakers.”
She dealt with her bitterness for 20 years with no hope in sight. She took a factory job, but felt that she had gone as far as she would ever be able to go. In her words: “just a plain, grey life.”
That would all change when a friend told her about Talk Fusion. With literally nothing to lose, she decided to try the