Fast forward two months. I noticed that my right ear was starting to hear things a bit differently. Kind of like when you come down from the mountains and can't pop your ear. Well after a couple of months of not being able to pop my ear I mentioned it to my wife and guess what she told me? So back to the doctors office I went. This time the nurse asked me a few questions and then pulled out a tuning fork, you know the kind you would tune a guitar with. He moved it all around my head and came to the conclusion that I needed to go to a Ear Nose and Throat (ENT)Dr.
Now it's the last week in August and I'm off to the ENT Dr.. This is were things got interesting. He came in and introduced himself, he asked me the standard questions then sent me to the electric chair. The electric chair is in a room with sound proof walls. The nurse put headphones on me and gave me a button to push everytime I heard a sound. After I was done the Dr. (Dr. Levine) read the results to me and told me that I had unilateral hearing, my right ear was not functioning as well as my left ear (no kidding). He then started asking me about recent changes in my health when I told him about being dizzy for a couple of days. I noticed his eyes got large when he heard this (not a good sign). Then he said he wanted an MRI of my head.
A couple of weeks later the ENT doctors office called me and said they needed me to come in to discuss my MRI. Now, everyone knows thats never a good sign. So off I went. You really have a lot of weird things go through your mind when your driving to the doctors to receive bad news. I just knew he was going to tell me I blew out my eardrum listening to loud music or working around loud equipment. So I prepared myself for the bad news.
Upon entering the room he said hi. I replied likewise and was watching him very closely to see how he acted. The next thing he said was "You got a tumor". Ok, I replied "Where is it?" He slid the MRI on the light board and pointed it out. A little white thing 4x5x7 mm near the middle of my head behind my right ear. "Uh, that's not good" I told him. "No it's not, your going to have to have it removed". I really didn't know what to say after that so I just sat there with a dumb look on my face (you know, my normal look). He went on to say that if he were in my shoes he'd go to a place called the House Ear Institution in Los Angeles. He wrote me out a referral and sent me on my way. That wasn't a very good day.
Thank god for the internet because I spent the next 12 straight hours trying to learn everything I could about vestibular schwannomas as there called. They are more commonly reffered to as acoustic neuromas. Here's a place to read about them.
After days of researching everything I could find, talking to others who have had them and then finding a forum of people pre and post surgery exchanging information I felt knowledgeable enough to make a decision of how I was going to take care of this lump. Surgery!
Fortunately for me Dr. Brackmann and Dr. Schwartz are the premier team of surgeons in the world to remove these very bad lumps. They both practice out of the House Ear Institute in down town LA at Saint Vincents Hospital.
During my initial consultation with Dr.Brackmann he explained that my tumor was small and recommended the middle fossa approach to remove it. With that procedure he will cut a hole in the side of my head above the ear. Then he will move my brains over to expose the little bony canal that has a bunch of nerves going through it like a wire harness. He will then let Dr. Schwartz take over to carefully separate the nerves and arteries and find the balance nerve. Then he'll cut the balance nerve at the tumor to remove it. It's OK there's another balance nerve and balance organ on the other side. While I was at my consultation I was lucky enough to meet an incredibly nice lady named Cheryl (who I met on the internet) and her husband Charlie who came here from NYC to have Dr. Brackmann and Schwartz perform her surgery. She just had her tumor removed 5 days earlier with the same procedure I'm having and met Pam & I in the hospital cafeteria. She was kind enough to answer my many questions and show me her scar. Wow, thats a big one, right on the side of her head. Right then I wish I still had my hair. Well she seemed fine considering she just had brain surgery so I felt that I made a good choice with my selection of doctors.
I have since made many forum friends. Another is a new mother, Amy, who just had her tumor removed on Oct 28th and is recovering. I'm staying in contact with her and Cheryl to see how's their doing. There's so many nice people on that forum who are willing to help it's really amazing.
Ok, here's my plan. I will update this blog until next Sunday the 15th. Then Michael (my son) will be manning the blog starting Nov 16th ( surgery day) to let anyone interested know how things are going until I get home hopefully on the 21st minus a screw.
Thanks for reading. I tried to keep it short.
Mike
