Acoustic Neuroma?

My father has been having problems with one of his ears lately (well really for about a month or so now). He went to one doctor that said his dizziness, vertigo and hearing loss was a result of a pretty bad sinus infection that blocked his ear. So he treated him for that by sticking a needle in his ear, piercing the ear drum and shooting his ear canal full of drugs in order to clear out the blockage. This, however, helped a bit, but my father is still having problems. So, he went to another doctor that we've been going to for years, he's a great ear, nose and throat doctor plus a brilliant surgeon so we figured he's be the one to figure out what to do.

Based on the symptoms and my father's age (he's 47 as of 2 days ago), the doctor decided to have an MRI taken on my father's brain in order to rule out acoustic neuroma (or vestibular schwannoma). You can imagine my reaction when I was on the phone with my mother and all of a sudden we're talking about potential future brain surgery on my father...







Acoustic neuroma is a benign (the magic word in my book), slow growing (in most cases) tumor that develops in the internal auditory canal on the 8th nerve. "The 8th nerve is actually 2 separate nerves - the vestibular nerve and the cochlear nerve. The vestibular nerve is responsible for balance while the cochlear nerve is responsible for hearing." Hence, why patients normally have balance and hearing problems. Also, this tumor can put pressure on the 8th nerve's neighbor, the 7th nerve which is responsible for controlling facial movements, hence some patients experience facial paralysis or mild forms of loss of sensation (something my father has experienced, but a number of years ago).

All this, for some reason which they have no idea why, all begins to "appear" around the age of 48, on average. "No one knows why this gene waits until age 48 (on average) to appear but it does." My Dad hitting 47 was a definite flag that went up.

So, my Dad had his MRI yesterday and we are awaiting the results.

Now, this whole thing is probably the worst case scenario based on my father's symptoms, however it needs to be ruled out. For all we know, it could just be a simple blockage in his ear caused by a rampant sinus infection. We will find out soon enough.

Now I'm trying not to worry, since we don't know anything yet, but there's nothing like getting a call from your mother on a Monday night that your father might need brain surgery. That was beyond "worry" at that point, we went into uncharted emotional territory from then on. So I deal the only way I know how, by finding out as much as I can about it.