Out there

Why is Patrick blogging?  In short, I’m wrestling with something and have been impressed that I should share my concerns and considerations more broadly.  I have mixed aspirations for this blog; to inform on what’s going on, to request your advice and prayers and, lastly, to hopefully provide some level of encouragement to the various trials we all face.

This story started around Thanksgiving when I sensed a cold coming on.  Weeks later I thought the cold had settled into my right ear as an infection and the day after Christmas I went to my doctor.  He didn’t see anything and 4 days later I saw an ENT doc.  My hearing test indicated some loss in the lower ranges and the ENT doctor thought it was likely the result of an infection that had since cleared, but as a precaution sent me for an MRI.  2 weeks later I learned the good news that I do, in fact, have a brain (surprised?) and the bad news that I also have a benign tumor in my inner ear.  That ENT informed me that the complication was in its location being close to the brain and that I’d need to see a specialist that was a cross between an ENT and neurologist. 

I would have to wait one month for that appointment and during that time I didn’t want to share with anyone.  I needed more information, I needed to process.  It was (is) a strange combination of sorrow, lack of control and embarrassment, but whatever this new problem was certainly personal… private. 

Taya (my wonderful wife) and I met with the specialist on February 13^th. We learned that that I have a small acoustic neuroma (about 1.3 cm).  A good short explanation with pictures showing a small, medium and large tumor can be found at http://anausa.org/index.php/what-is-acoustic-neuroma.  If left alone it will grow, take my hearing and begin to impact my balance and my facial nerve.  The good news is that it’s definitely benign and that I have some choices.  The bad news is that all the medical choices involve losing the hearing in my right ear sooner or later.  While losing hearing in one ear obviously isn’t the end of the world, the doctor did say that with just one ear you lose the ability to sort sounds between what is close and what is farther away so it’s harder to discern a close conversation in a noisy environment.  (Taya teases me that I only hear half of what she says anyway, so as long as she’s on my left will there be any difference or do I now have a medical excuse for selective listening?)   

In short, there are 3 medical options; monitor (aka wait), operate or radiate.  Surgery would remove the tumor, but because of the tumor location I would lose my hearing right away and the specialist said I would feel like I was “hit by a truck” because my balance would be so impacted that I should expect 2-3 months of recovery.  There are also the various risks of an involved surgery including anesthesia, infection, facial nerve paralysis, CFS leakage, etc., etc.  Targeted radiation is a quick non-evasive procedure without special recovery.  The radiation would cause the tumor to develop scar tissue over a number of months and it would stop growing.  Since the blood supply to my ear travels in the same location as the tumor, it too would scar and I would lose hearing.  Apart from hearing loss and leaving a “rock in my head”, the long term risks of radiation risks are less clear but involve the remote potential of triggering a cancerous tumor.  The advantage of monitoring the tumor is to potentially prolong hearing in that ear. Average growth is 1-2 mm per year, so depending on whether I’m “above or below average”, my “small” neuroma could soon be in the “medium” range and the pictures of tumor beginning to grow against the brain aren’t real appealing.  There are obvious advantages to doing surgery or radiation while the tumor is smaller.  Recovery is also easier the younger you are, not to mention the issue of acting while one has health insurance with a “pre-existing condition” in this uncertain environment. 

So back to the reason that I’ve decided to blog….  Now I have to make decisions and I’ve discovered that the road to choosing is as significant here to me as the final choice.  What would you do?  What role should faith in God play in the actions?