Tapdancing on a Balance Beam

Lessons in brain surgery

I’ve spent the better part of two years trying to explain to people how it feels to be a brain-damaged old lady.

You see, a little more than two years ago I woke up mostly deaf in one ear. We had flown that day and were visiting friends in Florida when it happened. So I thought it was just the old pressure-in-your-ear routine.

But when I got home and went to the doctor, I found out that I had a benign brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma. I found out that the little bugger was the reason why I often felt off-balance and sometimes heard a loud “bzzzt” in my right ear when I looked to the right.

OK. Fine, I thought. It’s not cancer. I’ll have it out. Whatevs. I wasn’t going to worry or give in to fear. Nah. Not me!

So into the big city hospital I went, into the office of the Chief of Neurosurgery at said big city hospital. I was cheerful, I was accepting, I agreed right away to have the surgery. Craniotomy? Bring it on. Post-op physical therapy? Sure!

And it all went well. I came out of the 12-hour coconut cracking and was home in three days. After a few weeks, I was mostly recovered.

Except while those neurosurgery guys were in my brain, they had had to cut my cranial nerve to unwrap the tumor that…