It's been over a month since my last post. I know some people have been
wondering what's happening with my hearing and why I'm not writing about it.
Well, the short answer is - not a lot, and I'm getting sick of talking about it
if I'm honest. Since I was last here in
blogland I had the follow-up MRI scan that I was waiting for. When I arrived at
the hospital they told me to go out into the car park to the temporary scanner parked there. Their regular scanner was broken
and would be out of action for a few weeks. I’m not surprised, I thought to
myself, remembering the bloody racket it made. This time I was prepared and brought
my ear plugs. Unbelievably this one made even more noise. It sounded like it was coming apart in a final
grinding, clanking, banging hurrah. Are they really meant to make so much
noise? I know it’s all very exciting cutting edge technology, with super
cooled, superconducting magnets that make it all possible but you don’t expect
such cool (excuse the pun) machinery to sound like something from a Victorian
steel mill. This time they had me in there for nearly an hour and to my
surprise I fell asleep for some of the time. I then had a few minutes in the CT
scanner, a far more civilized affair. I had my metal belongings returned to me
and was told I would hear from the consultant in due course.
About a week later I had an email from the consultant. What followed was
one of the worst afternoons of my life. The email informed me that I had “bone disease”
in the base of my skull that may require surgery. It sounded quite scary. Bone disease = bone cancer to me. Base of the skull? What’s that? After a few minutes
on the internet I found out that the base of the skull is the bit that stops
your brains from getting mixed up with the rest of the stuff in your head. I
also found out that parts of it can be difficult, if not impossible to get to
should surgery be necessary. I told Angie what I had found out and she just
stared at me in disbelief. I think that she, like me was having trouble taking
it in. I wrote back to the consultant and said that I was a little worried (so reserved, don't you think so?) and
could we have a chat on the phone because I have a few questions like “Should I
be getting my affairs in order?”
I spent the next few hours scaring myself some more by reading all about
skull base disease. Did you know there are doctors that have clubs dedicated to
a common interest in the skull base? Sounds like a great laugh.
About three hours after the first email, another arrives reassuring me that
I shouldn’t worry. He’d shown my scans to a few of his mates with more
experience of head bones and they both though it was a benign fibrous
ossification and I should come in for a chat. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound
of that either but was feeling better about the state of my head.
This morning I went to see the bone specialist to discuss the scans in
person. He showed me the insides of my head which I found fascinating, but even
I with an untrained eye could see the thing that was causing concern. It
is situated almost at the center of my head, at about eye level and in front of
the cerebellum. I would estimate it to be about 3-4cm across. I took a picture of the screen so you can see for yourself.
X marks the spot!
We discussed the
options which were:
1)
Do nothing.
2)
Do nothing for the time being but keep coming back of scans to make sure it
isn’t growing
3)
Perform a biopsy and find out what it is.
I asked him “what would you do?” He replied without hesitation “have a biopsy”
I’m waiting for the appointment so he can drill a hole into my head, entering
through my nose, to take a small sample of the offending tissue/bone.
What has become clear is that my “benign fibrous ossification”
(if that’s what it is) is nowhere near my left ear and probably has nothing to
do with my hearing loss. It’s a bit like
when you take your car to the garage because the air conditioning has stopped working and
they call you to say it needs a new gearbox as well.
My hearing has stopped improving and the tinnitus is still a problem when
it’s noisy but I’m learning to live with it. After pulling out of the DeeExpus
shows in April, I thought my first gig with Marillion wouldn’t be until June
but unfortunately that's no longer true. We are going to play in Caracas on April the 12th.
That should be interesting in more ways than one. I’ll let you know how I got
on in a few weeks time.
