Kathy Buckley grew up with a severe hearing loss. Unfortunately, she was misdiagnosed as learning disabled and spent much of her life fighting to find self-respect. Not only did she suffer repeated sexual abuse by a family friend, she was nearly killed when she was run over by a Jeep and left paralyzed. During that near-death experience, she felt God had given her a second chance. Her ability to find humor in even the most desperate circumstances led her to success as America's first well-known hearing-impaired commedienne, and also as a motivational speaker. Her new book, "If You Could Hear What I See" documents her journey to happiness--and extraordinary success. Her one woman show can be seen this August on PBS.

Lots of people go into comedy thinking it will be a good bridge into acting. They'll do stand-up, maybe get an HBO special, and then--at last!--a sitcom, the gold at the end of the rainbow. Once I got into stand-up, I thought the very same thing. I believed comedy would help my acting career, that it would break the ice about my hearing impairment. However, things didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped.