I will freely admit that I’m a hypochondriac. If anything is bumpy,
achy, flaky, misshapen or just generally a bit suspect, I’ll have it
thoroughly vetted by two GPs and a handful of specialists. So, imagine
my surprise when my gloomy suspicions actually came to fruition.
In October 2016, I thought I had the flu. I was bone-tired all the time
- an annoying reality when you work for yourself, because a nap is
just a waddle away, and seems like a healthy and productive use of
employee time. I was dizzy, too – 3am-at-the-club-tipsy dizzy – but
there was no equally inebriated girl getting me iced water and
telling me she loved my dress. I sooked to my fiancé. I ate frankly
dangerous amounts of ice-cream. I fell asleep in front of Netflix
every afternoon, hoping that when I woke I’d feel better. But the
illness kept dragging on.
After two weeks of housebound moping, I trooped over to a local
GP, a grandfatherly Greek man with expressive eyes and gnarled
hands. He poked and prodded me, listening to my chest as I wailed
dramatically about how gross I felt. “You’re run down!” he said,
writing me a prescription for antibiotics. I clasped it like a saint’s
relic, sure my salvation was near.
A week later, I was back with new symptoms: my right ear was
blocked and achy, like when I had ear infections as a kid. His hands
flapped this away. “You’re not getting enough fruit and sunshine!”
he said, writing me a script for a more general antibiotic.
A few more days and I was back once again, much to his chagrin. The
ear pain was awful and my hearing was half gone, replaced by buzzing
tinnitus. I was now sure it was an ear infection. “No no no!” The hands
flapped their disapproval. “You’re depressed!” He wrote a prescription
for antidepressants with the air of someone whose precious time was
being squandered. That was when I looked for a new GP.
Finding a doctor who takes your concerns seriously is a hard task.
I almost cried with happiness when my new doc looked in my ear,
sure she’d find it red and inflamed. But it was fine. Medically, there
was nothing wrong with me. She gave me something to stop the
dizziness, looking at me like I was a puzzle to pick apart. “Sophie,
what is wrong with you?” she asked.
That night, the oddest symptoms started. The world shifted
and bucked beneath me like the deck of a ship. My brain felt
too big for my skull, all lit up like a match head. I had a fierce
migraine, razorwire shoved up into the back of my eyeballs. I lay
in bed, crying and heaving with seasickness; getting up every
so often just to tumble over, unable to walk. My fiancé made an
emergency trip to the pharmacist, coming back with meagre
anti-nausea medication. “This won’t work,” I cried. “My brain is
swelling.” He hugged me, unconvinced. But those words turned
out to be oddly prescient.
I remember the look on my GP’s face as I fell through her door the
next day, determined to get a diagnosis. She was at a loss. “What’s
your family history?” she asked. “My mum is fine. My dad died when
I was 17 of a brain aneurysm.” Her brow furrowed. An MRI was
ordered. Expecting it to show an ear infection, I was cheerfully
resigned to spend half an hour in that loud metal tube. I spent the
time thinking up storybook ideas. Afterwards, I pottered around
the house, watering my plants for the first time since I’d fallen ill,
thinking I was on my way to getting better. Until I got a call: “Hi,
Sophie, your doctor would like to see you urgently to discuss the
results of your MRI. Are you free now?”
A call like that is roughly number three in the top five Calls You
Hope You Never Get. I knew something was very wrong, but didn’t
have a name for it yet. And then it came: suspected acoustic
schwannoma – a tumour that grows on the cranial nerve that
controls hearing and balance. It was pressing on my brainstem
and causing swelling, which was why I was so unwell. I was
booked in for surgery. Even if it wasn’t cancerous, I’d lose mywhat happens when your anxieties
turn out to be spot on?
WORDS AND ILLUSTRATION SOPHIE BEERa bump
on the brain
experience