I'm back!

Hey folks!

I'm back from vacation. Well, actually, I wasn't on vacation - I was having brain surgery. It was one-month ago today, on July 31st. I had imagined that I'd be blogging again within a couple of weeks after the operation, but I've had to wait a little longer to get my bearings back.

I've been wondering how I'd do with my musings, whether or not to spend much (if any) time writing about my recovery, but then figured: "Why not?" According to Wikipedia, worldwide, I'm one in a hundred-thousand to have what I have: acoustic neuroma. It's a (thankfully) benign tumor that is a type of schwannoma, which is something that I had in my lower back around five years ago.

So besides the random things I've been writing about so far on this blog, I'll be including the additional concerns I'll likely be having about my health and how it affects my day-to-day life. I'll try to keep all that to a minimum though. And by the way, the Wikipedia entry is way too complicated for me to understand...

It's taken me awhile to be able to walk around with a semblance of balance, and the severe toothaches I was experiencing are more or less gone. The doctor/surgeon told me prior to the operation that it would take up to half a year to get full movement in my face again, and I think that will happen sooner. The only real bummer that I've noticed so far is the complete loss of hearing in my right ear, not due to the function of the ear itself, but because of what was happening in my brain. Even prior to the surgery, I was really starting to appreciate how amazing the human body is, observing how mine wasn't functioning so well anymore. Now, I get to see how mine recovers.

Hooray - my taste for food is returning! The reason I even went to my primary doctor in the first place was my taste for food, primarily carbohydrates like pasta and bread, was changing for the worst. Difficult to say any more than those types of food were getting... bitter? And meats, particularly beef, were tasting bitter as well. Now that I've had the surgery, food is starting to get back to tasting normal again, although not completely. Admittingly, losing the extra weight wasn't so bad though - I was eating lots of fruits and even kind of liking vegetables for awhile there.

All in all, I'm recovering pretty well so far, although I've been putting off seeing just how different my hearing is. I don't typically notice a difference, as my left ear seems to pick up most everything anyway - I'm just afraid to put on headphones. Kind of ironic given my previous entry about listening to harmonies ('Sweet Harmonies').