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Since 1983 I have suffered from something called Meniere's Disease. It consists of tinnitus (ringing in the ears), fullness in the ear, hearing loss, dizziness, and vertigo attacks (try spinning around about a dozen times or more then stopping then add nausea and vomiting). In 1983 and the year after, I suffered only the tinnitus and the hearing loss -- usually only for a week at a time and then a couple weeks without. Always in the right ear. I found out when I mentioned to my doctor about the fullness in my ear during a visit concerning something else and he found them to be fluid free (no ear infections, etc.) and referred me to an ENT (ears, nose, and throat doctor). He gave me a hearing test and told me I had Meniere's. Then for a few years I was symptom free. |
In 1990 the symptoms returned. Again in the right ear. And again for a couple of years. I did have two small incidences of dizziness. Again to the ENT and some tests. Then relief again for a few years.
Two years ago the symptoms returned. This time in the left ear. They were identical to the past incidences. Now I began to have more dizzy spells. My doctor gave me a prescription for Meclizine to use as needed. I had a small vertigo attack a few months ago but in early April 1998 I had my first major vertigo attack.
I was at the local Hill's Department store shopping with my wife on a Sunday afternoon when I began to lose my balance. Soon I held tightly to my wife's hand and let her guide me to the car. By the time I reached home, I could not walk unassisted. My wife helped me into the house and seated me on the sofa. By this time the room started to spin. Within a half hour I was vomiting frequently. I could not walk or crawl. This lasted from 4:00PM until 10:00PM before I settled down well enough to sleep. I called in sick to work the next day still dizzy and afraid to drive (it's forty-five minutes to my office). I was still shaken on Tuesday and also did not go to work. Although slightly dizzy the rest of the week, I did go to work. The next Sunday at 3:00AM another attack woke me from my sleep. I was able to get around by Sunday evening. Now I was symptom free -- for a week. The next week I had two attacks while at the office. I had to call my wife to come pick me up with someone else to drive the car back. I began having the vertigo attacks every two to three days, each time keeping me from work for a day.
Now it was time to get the doctor involved. I called my family doctor for an appointment to get a referral to the ENT (you know how these insurance companies work these days). ECOG's and ENG tests. Hearing tests. Then the right ear began acting up. Now fifteen percent of Meniere's patients go bilateral which means both ears and I seem to be falling into that category. Only one of the tests was not 100% positive in the left for Meniere's. The ENT wanted a MRI of my head to check for an acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor of the acoustic nerve. We scheduled the test and my wife accompanied me to the appointment. I'm not claustrophobic but being in that small tube was unnerving. Now we awaited the results.
I was at work when I called the ENT for the results. It was not what was expected. Seems I had a tumor behind the nose that was in the sphenoid sinus and went back under the left temporal lobe. I was in shock. I called my wife with the news. She asked me if I was okay. I wasn't but said I was. I sat at my desk in a deep funk. I don't know how long I sat there at my desk. I decided to go home. On the way home I stopped at the ENT's office and told them I wanted to go over the results again. Instead of the ear doctor, the set my up with the nose doctor. He kept repeating to me "it's not a good thing". He attempted a biopsy through my nose while I was there. Some Novocain squirts up my nose and he proceeded to rip parts of the back of my nose with a small tool and a fiber optic viewscope. He pulled three samples. I wish the Novocain would have helped. I went home depressed. My wife met me there. It was not a happy household that night. She was at my side for everything I was to go through from this point on.
The biopsy was unsuccessful. The ENT scheduled me for an outpatient biopsy where they would put me out and root around through my nose, removing sinus material in the process to get to the sphenoid sinus. I went to the hospital the same day for a chest x-ray and some blood tests. I had a head CT scan done the day before. He had also scheduled me to see a neurosurgeon that day as well. The neurosurgeon cancelled the biopsy and told me it needed to be removed.
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The plan was to have an ENT go up through the nose or under my upper lip to work on the front and the neurosurgeon would remove a piece of my skull on the left side and work on the part under my temporal lobe. |
The Meniere's symptom continued throughout the testing and preparations for the big day and had to be worked around. Fortunately the attacks decreased to about once a week in the right ear. The neurosurgeon called and scheduled a chest CT scan. He was looking for any tumor growth there to rule out one had metastasized and and gone into my head. The scan came back negative to my relief. Now it was truly all in my head.
| The surgery was scheduled for 10:00AM on June 4. I was to arrive two hours early for prep and paperwork. The only thing I took along was my portable CD player, extra batteries and my Pink Floyd collection. I was also the courier for all my MRI and CT files. I put on the wonderful gown and placed myself on the gurney. The hospital adventure had begun. |  |
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There also was an arterial IV inserted in my left wrist and stitched in to monitor my blood pressure and pulse. After I was put under, they also inserted an IV in my jugular vein and had it sewn in. The last thing I remember was the arterial IV. After that was nothing. |
| Funny thing about being under, you have no sense of time. That time is lost -- gone from your mental history -- never existed. I told them I wish they would videotape. I think it would have been fascinating to watch. Not everyone gets to see what their brain actually looks like. |  |
I awoke in ICU that evening with more tubes sticking out of me. A Foley catheter, oxygen, the jugular IV, the arterial IV, another IV line not being used, and a tube from my head to a bottle taped to my gown.
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They also had airbags on
my lower legs, inflating and deflating to maintain leg circulation
-- my legs did ache since the time I awoke. The picture to the left
is actually the day after surgery without many of the tubes.
The news was good. The doctor found either a teratoma normally found in the reproductive areas (shows what's on my mind, huh?) or a dermoid cyst. |
I had 50 staples in my head and six stitches in my belly (seems he took some fatty tissue from there to plug the holes). Fat tissue won't leak brain fluids.
| I told them they could have
removed more fat tissue while they were there but that would have
been another long project. Now I may have gotten a fat head from all
the attention. The first day awake I was feeling well because the anesthesia was still in me. The second day I wasn't hungry and had little energy. The third and last day I was in a normal hospital room. I think the worst part of my stay was the problems with my IV, the removal of the |
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Foley catheter (I was glad I was asleep when they inserted it up my urinary tract), and the urge to urinate every ten to fifteen minutes especially the day the gave me the diuretic -- that was ninety percent of my activity the one day. But that being very minor (you should see all the IV bruises, particularly the back of my right hand is still completely black and blue) I would consider myself very lucky. Actually, it wasn't luck but I think the multitude of people praying for me and caring for me. |
Surgeon
who performed the craniotomy:
Dr. Joel Winer - York Neurosurgical
Accociates, PC
Hospital where operation occurred:
York
Hospital
ENT:
York ENT Associates
Meniere's Support Groups
Online:
Yahoo!
Group MM Friendships 2
meniere's.org
Brain Tumor Support Groups Online:
T.H.E. Brain Trust
National Brain Tumor Foundation
