April 15, 2019
April 15 will no longer be considered Tax Day in our household. The day will forever, from 2019 forward, be known as the day I received the call that no one ever expects to get.
For several months, I had experienced dizziness and unprompted sensations of being off-balance. In typical fashion, I had not said anything to my wife. Once it reached a point where I felt I had to focus so hard on what was directly in front of me that my peripheral vision was all but non-existent, I knew I had to say something. Without hesitation, she scheduled an appointment with my PCP. I don’t know that I even knew she would make that call until it showed up on our shared calendar.
The appointment, as I understood it, was only to establish care. It had been so long since I had been to a Doctor that I no longer had a Primary Care Physician. I was starting at square one. My most significant concern going into that appointment was how big the Doctor’s fingers would be. I’m at that age where certain unexplored areas of the body suddenly get explored, if you know what I’m saying.
After answering questions and sharing my symptoms, my new Doctor suggested getting some blood work immediately before leaving the office. This wasn’t expected on a first visit. Nevertheless, it hopefully meant I’d have an answer sooner than later — something like high cholesterol, blood pressure, you know the easy stuff.
A few days later, I receive the results and am told everything is normal, keep doing what I’m doing. But… there’s always a “but.” I was being referred to an ENT to explore my dizziness.
Fast forward to my ENT visit. Sparing you the details, besides my vertigo symptoms, we talked about the ringing that I’ve had in my left ear for as long as I can remember. I’d become so accustomed to it that I rarely think about it and would have never thought there was a connection to my other symptoms. (As a side note: yeah, um, this was the first that my wife had been made aware about the ringing. I don’t know if I’m stubborn or stupid…)
The ENT Doctor enters the room following some tests to show me the results.
Loosely quoted, she says, “If you were a 90-year-old man, I would simply say good luck and send you on your way. But you’re not, and I have some concerns. I want to schedule an MRI to rule out the worst case.”
Okay. So, I guess I’m getting an MRI.
It went something like this: narrow tube, loud noise, 45-minutes, lots of dollars.
And then, April 15, 2019. Knoxville, Tennessee. Time for dinner following a productive day of meetings at the University of Tennessee.
I answered the Dallas-based number from the backseat of my Lyft to dinner. There were no pleasantries, just the ENT Doctor announcing who she was on the other end of the line.
I would have loved nothing more at that moment than to hear my Asian Doctor attempt a thick Austrian accent quoting Kindergarten Cop. Instead, she says, “Chad, you have a brain tumor…” everything after sounded like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon.
I knew my wife was anxious to know the results of the MRI, but how in the world am I supposed to deliver this news!? I didn’t even hear most of the conversation following “brain tumor” and wouldn’t be able to answer her questions.
Still shaky from the news, I swallowed the lump in my throat and made the call.
My wife is by far the strongest woman I know. She had put up with me for 19-years at that time, and I never seemed to make it any easier. In pure form, even 900 miles away, I could sense her love, support, and empathy, but more importantly, her strength.
So, I was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma. It’s a rare benign tumor diagnosed in about 20,000 people annually. To give you a sense of what that looks like, that’s only 0.006% of the U.S. population.
Acoustic Neuroma? You may be thinking that sounds familiar. If you’re a football fan, you likely heard in the news about the same time that Kelly Stafford just had surgery to remove an acoustic neuroma. Kelly is the wife of Matthew Stafford, then Detroit Lions, and current L.A. Rams quarterback.
I had so many questions, and Google wasn’t helping with the answers. If anything, searching for solutions on the internet increased my concerns. Hearing loss and facial paralysis are among them. Still, I was most concerned — devastated may be the more appropriate word — about the burden I would become for my wife during recovery. Following surgical removal, recovery is 12-weeks on average. Can you imagine putting up with the “man-flu” for 12-weeks? And this is like the man-flu on steroids!
All joking aside, writing has always been cathartic for me. I have always found the written word to be an excellent vessel for communicating when the spoken word doesn’t quite deliver. Unlike the spoken word, writing is never misremembered. It is always a breadcrumb of emotion at an exact moment, documented for reflection and growth.
I became anxious to move on and reflect back on that moment and see how my family and I learned and grew. Little did I know that challenges on a global scale would disrupt our lives less than a year later. These challenges would increase our sense of urgency to keep a strong mindset for perseverance, strong will, and determination.
