acoustic neuroma part 3

Speech therapy wasn't what I thought it would be. There was work with a straw, making faces in a mirror, icing my face. I never thought thats what they would have me do. but I do have to admit that my speech was very slurry, and the therapy seem to work. In addition to the speech therapy exercises, I started seeing a massage therapist that also performed energy work and fascial manipulation. I was having a lot of facial pains and cramping. When I first started to see her, I was going twice a week. I did that for a little over a month. When she worked on me I had relief from pain, at least for a little while, couple of days. She got my eye to close. Granted it didn't close all the way at first, but mirrored the movement I would do with my right eye. A great leap forward. I was so happy. The doctors agreed that it was progress but didn't think it was that note worthy.

I continued to see her once a week for the next year. As she worked on me, I would tell her of how I felt the energy move or my face pull. That's when I became more aware of the energy fields in our bodies. She would hold a few spots on my head doing her energy work or fascial manipulation and I would feel the another spot that I know I just need to touch. And when I would the whole energy thru my head would change. The non-belivers in energy work will call BS here, but me and Grandpa we believe. It one of those things you have to experience to really understand. Pretty cool. Thru her work with me, mouth was able to close tightly enough to hold a mouthful of water, my eye could close all but just a small fraction, I could chew on both sides of my mouth, drink from a glass without a straw. Each felt like this great achievement. The doctors still agreed there was progress, but that it wasn't really something to be excited about.

After a year, I backed off my massage treatments to every other week. I had much less pain and could go longer between visits. My Husband was happy to see me cut back as I had already spent a lot of money on this. To me the progress was priceless. I could almost stand to look at my face again. I still didn't like people to take pictures of me. Vanity, maybe, it's not that I thought I was some knock out before, just everything worked before and now it doesn't and I feel less because of that. I became good about being invisible, and blending into the background. Total opposite to how I was before. I liked preforming and being a the spot light and being in the center of the actions. My sister describes our family as a pack of alpha dogs. Everyone trying to be in charge and center of all action.

Funny thing is none of the people who really knew me seem to even notice that I had changed. Out of sight, out of mind. The one that did notice the change, my husband, welcomed the change. He had grown up in a family, where women were mild mannered, meek, and never out shined the men. Looking back on things, I'm not sure why he ever asked me out, because I wasn't any of those things. He did take this opportunity to change the dynamics of our relationship, by asserting more control.

I woke up one night, with a dream that I was talking to a group about my experience with surgery and recovery. And it felt good, I was breaking some of the tension with jokes, a throw back to when I tried my hand at stand up comedy. When I told my husband about it the next day, his response was "What would you have to say that would be of any value to someone else on the subject?" I came back with that every story has a value and it was just a dream. Why couldn't I do that? I should have realized then that we weren't really on the same side about supporting each others dreams. When he told me that his dream had been to be in the military, I supported that dream and encouraged him to go for it so he would not have that as a regret. When he wanted to join a band and enter a band contest I supported him in that. I will give you he did support my art and spent many nights with me as I painted a mural and couple of long hot days as I did chalk drawing on pavement. I have a degree in art so, it wasn't like I was trying something that I had no idea if I would be good at or that I might not like doing. It's funny how you can see all the signs looking back, but you completely miss them as you are living it.

About a year and half after surgery, I had an MRI to check what was going on in my head and to see if they had gotten all of the tumor. The area of on the left, seemed to have lots of scar tissue and they decided that they would like to watch it more closely than they normally would with repeat MRI every year for at least five years and at that point if everything looked good, then they would back off to every three years for repeat MRI, as this tumor type is slow growing. My scan at year two looked about the same as year one, a good amount of scar tissue. When I went for my 3rd year scan, I expect to be told the same thing again. What they told me, there is still the scar tissue on the left, but we think we something on the right and will continue to monitor you yearly beyond the five year mark.

Shortly after this my husband announced he wanted a divorce. Although, he stated that my appearance (stroke victim)had nothing to do with it, I don't completely believe that. If my face had be functioning normally, I would not have withdrawn from life and would not have battled depression. It was hard to take him claiming that he wasn't sure why he had every asked me to marry him in the first place, (maybe he could have come to this realization before we had spent 10 years married) other than I had shown him more love and support in the year we knew each other before he proposed than his family had shown him in his life time.

After he left, it became old hat for me to go to my MRI appointments and doctor appointments alone. As a grown adult, you feel silly asking your Mom and Dad to go with you. At my MRI on the seventh year, the doctors told me that there really is something on the right side and now is the time to decide what I want to do about it. I was alone when I got the news and held it together long enough to get out of the doctors office. I had planned to go back to work after my appointment, but I just couldn't face it right away. I stopped stop have lunch. I cried at lunch and all the way back to work. Another brain tumor, more choices to be made and this time I am alone, no one at home talk this over with.