​Introducing Morris 

Well, my experience so far has been neither pleasant nor miserable.

I first noticed that after a long ride on the metro my left ear always buzzed for a while. I also found the front lights of cars in the evening much more dazzling than usual. I thought I was just tired and it would be gone with sleep. 

 

Yet, it didn't and in fact became worse. Soon when I was listening to music with earphones, the sound from the left felt much smaller and fuzzier than the right.

 

I consulted a doctor of ENT. An audio test was performed. The report of audio diagram showed hearing loss of my left ear. The doctor warned me that the curve had a sudden drop which implied something different from common hearing problem. I was asked to take a MRI scan. 

 

After a week or so, the photos of MRI came back. A tumor was in my head. I had been quite careful about eating, drinking and living a healthy life. Never expected something like this would happen to me. The doctor said it seemed like an acoustic neuroma, which was rare and usually benign.

 

Panicking for quite a while, I felt a swerve in everything.  I started to look for all kinds of information about it. Unfortunately, it concluded that the disease was quite rare and there is no perfect treatment that would leave no issues later.

 

Neurosurgery can remove the whole tumor but risk results in facial paralysis. Radiation can manage the tumor quite well but issues of exposing brain to Radiofrequency loom. 

 

I visited both neurosurgeons and doctors of gamma knife and cyberknife. Doctors of radiation said mine was managable by RF but due to its size, it might cause oedema in a few months which requires another surgery. The neurosurgeon sounded comparatively more optimistic. He just warned facial paralysis and permanent deafness. 

 

It took a few months before I made the decision. The deterioration of my hearing on the left had also progressed exponentially, I now had almost complete deafness for the frequencies of human voices.  

 

Luckily, I came across some websites that  were dedicated to the disease and people's personal experiences. One of them is Jude's. Her story illustrated with great photos assured me that neurosurgery would be the choice for me.

 

Then I made an appointment with my neurosurgeon and asked him to help schedule a surgery. I stayed in the hospital for almost 3 weeks. The first week was for taking all the tests and adjusting. Then the operation took place in the beginning of the second week. I was asked to stay one more week because of fluctuations of my body temperature.

 

The operation was just a long sleep for me. It began in the morning. When I woke up, I found myself in the bed in ICU but I felt very depressed and unprecedentedly heavy in my chest. Some screens were flickering with beeps. Then I realised I wasn't able to close my left eye. A nurse watered it occasionally.

 

In the following days, the left side of my face was swollen and falling down, and I realised my left ear was totally deaf. Food got stuck in the left side of my mouth and I had trouble with my depth perception. Luckily, I didn't have any trouble balancing. I have to say the most troublesome issue was double vision. 

 

The double vision issue persisted for a few months while the other issues began to fade. Four months after the operation, I was asked to take another MRI. It confirmed that the tumor had been fully removed thankfully. It also showed the acoustic nerve on the left thickened. I haven't got what the thickening implies yet. Maybe nothing, I hope.

 

At the  fifth month. I work regularly with a leisure workload. The facial paralysis is still not gone. The double vision is problematic occasionally. However, I try to keep myself easy and comfortable, not worrying about those. 

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Looking back I don't think I would like to go through another operation, even if it is just a small operation.  Sometimes, I just feel so exhausted and lost in insurmountable fatigue. I think Jude and the others would understand the feelings and the experiences. Talking to my friends and my parents doesn't seem helpful. They simply have no idea about the struggles and the unfairness. Now, I come to terms with doing  my work with some flaws in, but I'm proud that the work has been done good enough for a person with such a condition. (They don't know at work)

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The stories on the website have inspired me on several critical decision points. The idea of sharing my experience is fantastic. I think sharing is also good opportunity to look back for myself and to help others who wonder about options and decisions on the disease. I hope it helps. 

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