Not good news, even if it is just one ear

Been one of my major worries over the years with the sheer ammount of abuse my ears have taken, as I did a LOT of gigging when I younger - I used to have two 5ft (4x 12" cones) monitors either side of drum kit as personal monitors and towards the end of my gigging "career" I used to have them so loud they would clip and cut out!

I'm actually very surprised my ears didn't completely give up! I think I have about a 5% hearing loss in terms of volume, some restriction on the high pitched frequencies I can hear (dunno what it is in hertz, just know I can't hear some that most others can) and a mild form of tinitus

But at least I CAN still hear - and if it is only one ear your bro is going deaf in, he will soon think this way aswell. He'll be bummed out for sure at first, but after a while he'll soon lean to the "at least i'm not completely deaf" side of things