Hi,
Back in 2010 I had symptoms of chronic sinusitis that wouldn't end including the inability to swallow the saliva, so I kept spitting up the saliva instead of swallowing it which made it thicker. Because of the symptom of having a hard time trying to swallow as well as a history of having fallen two times and cracked my skull my doctor thought that I might have a brain tumor keeping me from swallowing, so he had an MRI and a Contrast Dye done on me.
It was discovered that I had a tumor the size of a golf ball sitting in the back of my head a little left of center (also called 4th ventricle) and it was blocking my throat and keeping me from swallowing. It was removed in a 6-1/2 hour operation, and after that I had to have another operation to implant a titanium plate in the dura to seal it so the cerebral spinal fluid wouldn't leak out, then I needed a third operation to implant a shunt behind my right ear to drain away the cerebral spinal fluid into my stomach that was building up and leaking out the back of my head. After that I had to have a feeding tube and peg implanted in my stomach to keep food down because I kept feeling sick to the stomach for 3 months because I kept having migraine headaches (I had been having them all the time I had the chronic sinusitis, but I didn't think the headaches had anything to do with the tumor). By January 2012 I was finally able to have the feeding tube removed and now I'm eating and swallowing just fine, but I'm still having some minor headaches related to badly infected teeth that I recently had pulled out and since I had the teeth pulled out the headaches seem to have become weaker, but not completely gone yet. I still don't know why I'm still getting migraine headaches, but not as bad as before the teeth were pulled out.
Also, thanks to the tumor I'm having balance problems so I'm having to walk with a walker and I'm always feeling like I'm going to fall to the left or right when I take one step and if the walker bumps into anything I feel like my ankles and knees are wobbly and unable to balance and I'm scared I'm going to fall forward and get injured from falling.
Lastly, after the surgery my whole left side of my body, and especially my left hand and arm feel numb and stiff where it's hard to grasp and hold anything with my left hand. I'm having the most severe trouble when trying to type on the keyboard and I have little control over the movement of my left hand because it feels so stiff (tight muscular contraction in all the joints & skin feels like my fingers are being pulled tight). It's extremely hard to use my left hand to write or draw anything and the left hand is my dominant hand. I must get my left hand working normal again so I can do drafting (which involves drawing invention designs and you must have the dexterity to draw complex pictorial representations with a steady hand)--mine is shaking, stiff and feels numb like pins and needles feeling or like you had your hand in a freezer too long and now you can't feel anything your fingers touch. The numb feeling makes it hard to bath myself as I can barely stretch my arm behind my back to take a bath. I used to take showers but now I can't balance too well standing up, so now I take baths to avoid falling.
If anyone has any advice or suggestions please let me know.
Thank You,
TerryDennisView Thread
