When I had the surgery on the 1st tumor, it was very small and my doctor told me I had a 20% chance he could save my hearing. When I awoke he told me I was in his 20% category because I could still hear. I was just lucky I guess in that aspect, but looking back, it makes me wonder if he left a piece of the tumor in order to save my hearing. Especially, after he told me he got it all. As for my balance nerve, I'm not sure if it was left intact or not. I did have about 8 to 10 weeks of unsteadiness but it did improve over the next 2-3 years until I began noting I would somehow lose track of where I thought I was on the road and where I actually was while driving my car. I too have a pressure build up feeling inside the ear and headaches.ÂÂ
Beyond that, I also experienced a high blood pressure rise and a high white blood cell count. My nose began bleeding almost daily and several times throughout the day. My doctor first thought I had some sort of an infection which would cause the spike in my white blood cell count. I was fine. So, he sent me to an ENT to discover the bleeding nose problem. The ENT sent me in for the MRI and they found the tumor after 5 months of Physycial therapy on my complaints about my neck, shoulder, and hand issues and explaining to them that I had headaches, dizziness, ear pressure and etc. My doctor told me that a tumor can cause your blood pressure to rise and in some circumstances cause your white blood cell count to be high, and it i did in my case. So you see, ...some symptoms were the same as before and some were not.
