Thursday marked my one year anniversary of my acoustic neuroma brain tumor removal.  I have found myself thinking a lot about that experience this past week and what I was going through this time a year ago.  I would love to be able to say that I am good as new or that I’m back to doing everything I could do before the surgery, but I’m not.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am very blessed that the tumor was discovered and that I had it removed.  Nothing good was going to come of it, obviously.  But short of having some ringing in my years and some hearing loss in my left ear, I felt fine and had no idea anything was wrong.  It was actually a fluke that it was discovered as quickly as it was. So here I am a year later still working on recovering.  I remember telling myself last Thanksgiving that this time next year, it would be like it never happened.  Well that was wishful thinking. Maybe Thanksgiving 2016 it will be like it never happened.  A girl has got to have hope, right?

So what has this past year looked like for me?  Those first couple of months it was just trying to focus on walking.  It took a while for me to look left and right without getting a bit dizzy.  It was like I was drunk without drinking. Things were kind of woozy.    My surgery was on my left side, so I have only been able to sleep on my right side.  That is still the case 99.9% of the time.  If I lay on my left side for very long, the anger sharks start swimming.  In February I got the green light to do some light running.  I wanted to get back to running like I was before surgery, and I’m still working on it.  I think walking with minimal slow running is a better option for me at the moment.  Since my balance is questionable at times, I am very careful not to trip or stumble.  I have learned the hard way that with only one balance nerve left, it doesn’t take much to tip me over.  I have fallen twice in the last year and let me tell you, it was not good.

I cannot sneeze or cough without the back of my head becoming very angry.  Would love to know when that is going to stop.  I live in Oklahoma where there are things in the air and sometimes I need to sneeze.  I went to great lengths last allergy season NOT to sneeze.  And if I swallow wrong and need to cough, yikes.

Bending over is still an issue and as long as it is, yoga is a no go.  Downward facing dog might send me over the edge.  My head gets angry when I bend over to pick up the dog food bowls.  I have decided that I probably won’t ever ride a roller coaster again.  I think my head would literally blow off or I might just pass out.  But hey, I can still go dancing with my husband and I can still twirl as long as he is standing there to make sure I stop twirling when I’m supposed to.  Any sport which might cause me to fall, which would include water skiing or snow skiing is off limits.  Heck I didn’t do that before my surgery, so I certainly don’t want to do it now.  I was worried that this head issue would cause me problems if I traveled on a plane.  Good news, we went to London and Paris in September and I not only did fine on the Boeing 777, but also on the Eurostar high speed train.

So as I reflect, my main issue is headaches.  I am to the point that I plan my activities around them.   Where am I going to be when the next one pops up and how will I get rid of it?  I always carry Extra Strength Tylenol or Advil with me.  I am fortunate that over the counter pain meds will take care of it; but, I’m taking them every day.  So in August I bit the bullet and went to a neurologist for help.  So far I’ve tried two different types of migraine meds (and I don’t think I have migraines).  Neither did anything and one of them made my night time headaches worse.  I have also gone to physical therapy, which was nice while the therapist manipulated my neck, but with no lasting benefits.  I’ve had one occipital nerve block injection, lasted a few hours.  I have had two trigger point injections in the muscles of my neck, lasted a couple of hours.  I am getting an upper body massages every week and I do think that it is making my neck more flexible.  Next up, I’m contemplating acupuncture.

In August when I first went to the neurologist, they took my blood pressure and they commented that it was a bit high.  Like 160/110 high.  I have never had high blood pressure, it’s usually below 120/80.  Each subsequent time I went in they would take my blood pressure and again, it was high.  Hmmmm.  Well a week before I went to my latest appointment, I started taking my own blood pressure at home and keeping track. OMG, it is off the charts.  One morning it was 177/117 when I woke up!

Now I have headaches AND high blood pressure.  I don’t know if the blood pressure is causing my headaches or if my head pain is causing my high blood pressure.  And the doctor doesn’t know either.  So now we are trying to get my blood pressure under control and we’ll just see how the headaches respond.  Ever see that commercial where the woman has to go the bathroom every few minutes and she has that little cartoon bladder tugging on her?  Well I have one of those and it’s a little cartoon headache with high blood pressure that is following me everywhere. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I’m officially kicking off my second year of surgery recovery.  My goal, to rid myself of headaches and high blood pressure. To be able to sleep all night, awake refreshed and ready for my day with the energy and stamina to get with an exercise program and to stick with it.  Those are tall orders, but I am so ready.