Additionally, after my second back surgery, I began having severe problems with my balance resulting from the undiagnosed tumor. I couldn’t walk in large areas like the mall or in stores without feeling disorientated or losing my balance. I had to sit down when I came to escalators because the movement made me nauseous. When I visited Dr. Kahle, my back surgeon, to talk about these problems, I asked if it was possible that fluid had drained out of my spine during surgery and whether that could be causing these symptoms. Dr. Kahle assured me that the problem was not caused by the back surgery, but he did not offer any further idea about what might be causing the balance problems. Instead, he prescribed me Neurontin and sent me to my primary doctor, Dr. Haas. The side effects from the Neurontin made me feel even worse, so I was told to stop taking it. Unable to diagnose the cause on his own, Dr. Haas referred me to an E.N.T. doctor, Dr. Feeley. In the course of the next two years, I was given CAT scans and other tests, none of which located the problem. All this time, I staggered when I walked up or down steep driveways or up stairs. I lost my balance at work, often grabbing onto anything close for support. Sometimes my clients had to steady me. I often walked close to the walls so I could reach out for balance, but I feared people at work would see me bouncing off the walls and think I had a drinking problem.
As the problems continued to worsen, and with no real cause for my condition discovered, the doctors continued to prescribe different medicines. Dr. Haas prescribed Meclazine – it didn’t help. I was even put on Prozac. The Neurontin had made my condition worse, but the Prozac made the problem intolerable. I thought I was losing my mind; at one point, I begged Dr. Feeley to put drainage tubs in my ears to release the pressure. He finally agreed to the procedure, but of course it didn’t help. I had very few appointments in 2003, but they were all related to these ear problems. For two years I complained about the pressure in my ears, and for two years I was rudely told, “there is nothing in your ear.”
As I mentioned, the doctors had shuttled me through barrage after barrage of tests, and prescribed pill after pill, but they had neglected to administer the one test that would reveal the problem. I had all the symptoms of a brain tumor during those two years: constant, loud ringing in my left ear; a loss of hearing on the left side; and a terrible, disorienting balance problem. Despite all of these symptoms, it wasn’t until June 1, 2004, when I finally received an MRI with contrast, that an acoustic neuroma, a type of brain tumor, was found. As a result of the tumor, I lost the hearing in my left ear, the balance nerve was completely destroyed, and I will continue to live with a constant ringing. When I was told about the tumor my doctors presented it in a joking manner: “Oh, now we know what was causing your head problems.” The doctors displayed no compassion for the two years of misdiagnosis, the series of tests, or the variety of pills to which I had been subjected.
I was finally sent to a brain surgeon at UW-Hospital, Dr. Pyle. He did not recommend brain surgery because it was too risky to operate where the tumor was located, plus my age was a factor. It would have been a ten-hour surgery. Fortunately, the tumor had stopped growing, and with physical therapy the right side would compensate for the balance difficulty. Had I been diagnosed earlier, when the problems began in 2002, the therapy would have helped so much.
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