BARRIE'S STORY - An acoustic Neuroma patient

3. PREOPERATION

On obtaining my scan privately on a Friday morning I contacted the NHS hospital and to their credit I saw the head of the ENT department on the following Tuesday. The scan showed that I had a large tumour. I have often been asked what my reaction was to receiving this diagnosis. I was simply relieved that someone had finally determined what was wrong with me. I did not really consider what was going to happen to me next. By this time my wife had begun to do some research on the Internet and found out the serious nature of the condition, but at this stage she did not tell me. The ENT head told me he could not help me but would pass me on to a consultant who could treat me. Within days he had sent my file to the consultant's secretary. I received a phone call one evening from the consultant who had not seen my MRI Scan but was aware it had arrived at her secretary's office. Literally within a day or two we were planning to go to abroad for a week's holiday. It turned out that the consultant was about to go skiing, so it was agreed I would see her soon after we had both returned from our respective holidays. How I survived this holiday is anyone's guess but I just about managed to handle the flights etc..

Before the trip my symptoms had become more complex in that I had completely lost my ability to write. This had given me a major problem with a local history course I was doing on the Internet. My usual approach to writing essays was to hand write them then type them onto the computer using my two finger typing technique. For the final essay, that I had to do, for the first module of the course had to be typed directly because of my total inability to write. On returning from my holiday I saw the consultant and my condition was examined. The size of the tumour was causing a risk of hydrocephalus (the tumour was likely to soon interfere with the flow of fluid through my brain). I had still not realised the seriousness of the situation. Within three days I was phoned at home one evening and told there was a bed available in the Neurosurgery Department of my nearest hospital able to deal with Acoustic Neuroma surgery. I had to grab some things and rush to the Hospital that evening. Within 24 hours I had a CT scan, which apparently provides more information for the surgeon than the MRI scan. I was also given steroids that reduced the size of the tumour and made the situation less critical. I was to spend nearly two weeks being monitored and this allowed the operation to be undertaken as a regular scheduled operation rather than as an emergency..

Before the operation I was given a series of tests at the local university to the hospital. Apparently all Acoustic Neuroma patients, at this hospital, are given these tests before surgery. They are usually undertaken while the person is still an outpatient, before their operation. In my case the situation was an emergency, so my tests were undertaken after I had arrived at hospital. To my amazement, I was given a hearing test involving the ability to detect human voices. This involved listening to a series of words as well as the regular tone tests! I felt that had such a test been performed sooner, it would have detected my tumour much earlier. The tests were now academic since I no longer had any hearing in my right ear. At least it established that my left ear was operating properly. A range of balance tests were also undertaken, one test involved placing warm water in each ear and a test, I termed, the 'bouncy castle' test. This second test involved the use of a semicircular padded unit with a metal base on which the patient stands while the plate is vibrated and the angle varied by a computer. The patient is held by a harness to stop them falling over, then a series of tests is run with the patient first of all keeping their eyes open, then repeated with their eyes closed. The tester then observes, for each test, at what point the patient loses their balance. Needless to say, I lost my balance very quickly with most of the tests.

These tests were undertaken on the Friday before my operation on the Tuesday. Since I seemed to be OK, I was allowed to go home for the weekend. During the weekend I had my haircut quite short. This ensured that the preoperative preparation of shaving my head behind my ear for the surgery left a far less significant impact on my hair.

From my first day I was in a ward with another Acoustic Neuroma patient who had had his operation less than two days before I arrived. His tumour was relatively small, being no more than 2 cms. He was lucky his post-operative problems were not very severe and he had no facial palsy. I watched him recover and he left the hospital before I had my operation. I was given a false sense of security of what I would have to contend with when my tumour was removed and I went into my operation not realising what was to come.

In retrospect it is surprising that I had not suffered symptoms earlier in the growth of my tumour, but my body simply hid the problems from me. The growth of the tumour is likely to have taken place over many years. I had suffered what I would call minor migraine like headaches. These were not regular and I had put them down to stress from my job at the time. My earlier ear problem was not seen as significant enough to pursue further at the time. Eventually my balance started to deteriorate and with the final loss of hearing provided obvious symptoms of an Acoustic Neuroma. There is little evidence at present to indicate why such tumours are caused. There has been some speculation that the tumours may be caused by early mobile phones. In fact, I was an early user of analogue mobile phones, but many patients have never had any involvement with mobile phones. Acoustic Neuromas were also being found long before mobile phones were invented.