Tuesday, October 30, 2007

When Your Body is Talking to You... Listen.

The question I'm asked most frequently is, "How did you know you had a brain tumor?" The answer is, I didn't. I found out less than a day after my (amazing, wonderful and authentically-caring) ear doctor had scheduled an MRI appointment for me, and seriously, I was completely floored. Stunned. In shock.

In fact, after having put off a hearing test for over two years (yes, that long), I would feebly attempt to scare myself into going, thinking to myself, You know, Self, you really should make that appointment, 'cause what if you have, like, a tumor or something?, after which I would mentally reply back, "It's NOT a tum-ah!" Well, as you know, I finally went for a visit, and shockingly, discovered it was a tum-ah after all.

The original purpose of this blog was to use my experience to provide other AN patients a more candid destination in locating information about acoustic neuromas versus what I found during my own research -- harrowing websites whose surgical horror stories only succeeded in scaring the sh*t out of me as opposed to demonstrating it as an understandably-challenging diagnosis that can eventually be overcome. So for those of you who are here thinking you may have a tum-ah, rest assured. You, like Arnold, probably don't have one. However, here are a list of my symptoms, pre-diagnosis, that I eventually discovered were core ingredients that distinguish the elusive acoustic neuroma:

One-sided hearing loss. I first noticed the hearing ability on my right side wasn't as good as my left side about two years ago. I compared both sides by listening to one iPod earphone at a time -- the volume was noticably different between the two. Like a moron, I attributed the loss to old age (yes, at the dehabilitating age of 28) and ignored it for a couple years. Though this past year, my hearing declined rather dramatically over a few months, and this time wasn't only a matter of reduced volume, but sound distortion. My hearing test confirmed both these points. As the tumor grows in the nerve which is responsible for both hearing and balance (a loss of balance being another AN indicator, which didn't affect me, though it could have been disguised by my natural clumsiness), this in itself was a red flag.

Tinnitus. Tinnitus (prounounced tin-ihh-tis; not tin-i-tis, as it is commonly mispronounced) is defined as "the perception of sound in the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound(s)", or as I like to call it, that annoying, incessant ringing in my ear make it stop someone please. My tinnitus (which unfortunately wasn't cured with the surgery) is competitive and likes to increase its volume, indicating its overbearing presence, whenever I find myself stressed or, more obnoxiously, whence in a loud environment. It's extremely annoying, but like any other incessant nuisance, has come to exist relatively unnoticed until I purposefully think about it.

Facial numbness. As a result of the (unbeknownst to me at the time) tum-ah having stretched and pressed upon my facial nerve, the right side of my face had developed a slight numbing sensation -- much like the feeling of novacaine before it's almost worn off. It affected the lower portion of my jaw and tongue, and like the tinnitis, was more apparent during times of stress. Fortunately it disappeared with the surgical removal of the tum-ah.

Okay, so I know you're all, Uhhh, Amanda. You're saying you had all these symptoms -- and didn’t get them checked out? Are you stupid or somethin'?" I know. I agree. Looking back, I find it kind of ridiculous that I ignored them for so long. But I was busy. I had people to see, places to go, a job to do. Honestly, a tum-uh is the last thing I -- or anyone -- should expect to have. I mean, up until my diagnosis, I had lived a healthy existence relatively devoid of doctors and of being sick. Little did I know I'd had a slow-growing, benign tumor developing within me over the past decade -- a truth that still remains unfathomable to me.

Yet I've learned from my experience and I hope you can too. My advice is, short of becoming a hypochondriac, is to listen to what your body is telling you. If something seems alarming to you, get it checked out. And get those proper annual checkups which will tell you if something's wrong when your body isn't able to tell you otherwise. The good news is our bodies are strong enough to recover from almost any malady, and I consider myself proof of that, having emerged from this whole crazy experience as a stronger, more educated, and now, tum-ah-less ninja force.