My Acoustic Nemesis: Life Before, During And After An Acoustic Neuroma

By Russell Holden

By the time I was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, it was the size of a walnut. Within the space of a few weeks, I was booked in for a big operation and facing some major lifestyle changes - deafness, facial paralysis and loss of balance. At the time, information about an Acoustic Neuroma (also known as Vestibular Schwannoma), what they are and what to expect in the weeks following the removal were few and far between. I wrote a day-by-day diary in the immediate weeks following the operation and as time went on updated this account through the years, including the experience of having a BAHA implant. If you have been diagnosed with having an acoustic neuroma this book offers a unique first-hand account of the days, weeks, months ... and years post-operation and what to expect as part of the recovery process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell Holden
• Release date: Oct 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370649174

Russell Holden

I am book designer with over 15 years of graphic design experience. From layout, page design, creating covers, interiors and even photo tweaking for all book genres. Pixel Tweaks Publications is the imprint of Pixel Tweaks, an established Graphic Design business, managed by Senior Designer, Russell Holden. We count it a privilege to work with enthusiastic authors and assist them in seeing their literary dreams become a reality. I offer a book production service from page and layout designs to full cover design. The self-publish process isn’t as painful or as expensive as one might think and the whole process can take as little as two months to get from word processor to bookshelf. Up to the present day, we have produced over thirty books, either under our imprint or for other publishers such as Sedbergh-based Handstand Press. In 2014 one of our books (Warbirds of Walney) was short-listed for the Lakeland Book of the Year Award.

Book preview

My Acoustic

Nemesis

Russell Holden

Published in 2016

© Pixel Tweaks Publications

Book interior Design by Russell Holden

www.pixeltweakspublications.com

Print version ISBN: 978-0-9934679-7-4

All rights reserved without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book, Russell Holden.

Thanks to everyone who got me

to where I am today

Dedicated to my children

Jamie, Niamh Max & Holly

In the Beginning

My own history with Acoustic Neuroma began around 1997. That was the year I first noticed a slight twinge as I rubbed my face dry one evening with the towel. It felt as if I had briefly touched a raw nerve. It was so fleeting that I didn’t think much of it, however as time progressed this fleeting pain grew more and more intense – sometimes when I touched my face, other times a gust of the wind or a yawn would set off a series of facial spasms which were so excruciatingly painful I had to immediately stop whatever I was doing and let the spasm run its course. After the pain had passed, I would be left feeling punch drunk and watery eyed.

Each year they would occur more regularly and intensify. They went from happening very occasionally to once a month, then a couple of times a month and so on. The pain was never in the same place every-time – the spasms would ‘migrate’ up & down my face.

I first mentioned it to the doctor around 1999. I was given an examination and sent for a CRT scan, but nothing noticeable was found that could be causing the pain. I have never been a regular visitor to the doctors and could count on one hand the number of visits I’d had in the previous decade. I’d keep putting off visits about my spasms as I’d usually spend hours in a waiting room to see a doctor who was seemingly baffled by my ailment. After a few visits, the doctor diagnosed Trigeminal Neuralgia. It was suggested that a one of the trigeminal nerves in my face had a blood vessel sitting on it which was causing the terrible facial pain. I was given an appointment to go to the pain clinic at the local hospital and was prescribed various drugs to control the pain. These drugs were pretty useless - they succeeded in making me feel in a constant state of lethargy but did nothing to kill the pain, and because I didn’t know when one of the spasm attacks would be, I couldn’t take anything to pre-empt the pain either.

One night in 2003 my daughter was feeling unwell so slept in our bed, and I stayed in her room.