"A New Me" Blog

That brings me to the CROS aid. CROS is an acronym for Contralateral Routing of Sound. Six years ago I bought Phonak Cros hearing aids and have never regretted the decision. A transmitter is placed in the deaf ear. A receiver is placed in the good ear. The first types had wires that went around […]

Helen Keller once said, “Blindness separates us from things, but deafness separates us from people.” This is true. We separate from others when we catch only some words. It’s hard work filling in the blanks of what we don’t hear. Actually exhausting work. And, sometimes we begin to shy away from situations we know will […]

My hearing hasn’t returned. As a result, hearing loss on one side is a part of A New Me. The challenges of loss of hearing on one side are “interesting.” It’s different when one ear is out of order. Does it matter? God designed us with two ears. Do we really need both ears? Well, […]

All went well with the treatment. After so much study of treatments, it was almost anti-climatic. I had my three days of treatment and we flew home to Illinois. No problems. I did feel extra tired and needed extra naps. Other than the tiredness, I felt good. I was excited to see future MRI’s. Would […]

A team of physicians at Stanford University used the MRI and Cat Scan of my brain to plan the radiation delivery to my tumor from all directions. (See the arm of the machine on #31 blog.) That arm slowly moves around the table and delivers radiation from all angles to the exact location of the tumor. […]

God must have thought I needed a hit over the head. He gave me one. One hour I could hear and the next hour, my right ear couldn’t hear anything. My first thought was wax. I tend to have lots of ear wax and many years ago I had wax buildup, enough to cause hearing […]

In 2005, the national symposium for acoustic neuroma patients took place in Orlando, Florida. My husband and I made the decision to attend. We both wanted to learn more about radiation in case I ever needed treatment. The AN symposiums have informative presentations. Doctors are available to answer questions. Panels of doctors present case studies […]

One of the biggest things I have learned about this type of rare tumor – because it is rare, it’s important to see doctors who have treated many patients with it. And that means not a couple of dozen, but hundreds. This is true for both surgery and radiation. In other words, it’s important  to […]

With my God-letter, I reached a decision – get radiation treatment. The very next Sunday in church, I heard the words from Ecclesiastes : “a time to kill.” I felt like that was confirmation of the decision—time to get treatment, time to kill this tumor, kill it with radiation. And here I thought kill meant […]

Maybe writing a letter to God will help me have the peace that comes with trust. Many times in my letters to God I ask for help making a decision. Sometimes my letters are about ugly emotions I’m trying to get under control. Often the letters ask God to help me make an attitude adjustment […]