Hi Islandgirl
Your experience sounds absolutely horrendous and has made me realise that I have actually been quite lucky with how things have gone so far for me.
We all know that the NHS is stretched and, in my (humble) opinion, since QA was made a 'Super hospital' things have deteriorated. They are great at 'emergencies' - last November my mum collapsed at home and was rushed to QA where they discovered that she'd had a brain haemorrhage, which the consultant described as 'of catastrophic proportions - the worst they had ever seen'. We were told that she wouldn't last the night - and then were hit with the blow that my dad was in another part of the hospital as he'd had a heart attack! Both QA and Southampton Neurological unit (where mum was taken the next to have the aneurysm coiled) were absolutely fantastic. Through her sheer determination, mum did survive and came home at the end of January this year and dad is well again too.
You said that when you were first diagnosed in April 2011 you had a small AN, yet at the time of your next MRI in May 2012 it had grown considerably. Throughout that period it sounds like you had experienced quite a bit of stress with appointments etc. and I just wonder how much that stress affected the growth of your AN.
At the moment, I do not even know if I have an AN - but I do know that from when my I first started to notice the hearing loss in June 2012 (and had it tested) through to May of this year my hearing and tinnitus got a lot worse. I wondered if this could be connected to the stress of my parents being ill.
Then, when I saw the audiologist in June and he raised concerns about my auditory processing abilities and said I would need a scan to establish if there was a medical problem causing it, I have to confess that I was straight on the web looking up what it might be (bad move I know). Since then my hearing and tinnitus has gotten a whole lot worse (hearing down 25 dB between May and September) and I wonder how much that is to do with stress?
I know that stress and tiredness do make tinnitus worse which is ironic when you think that you are going to get stressed if the hospital are not being very supportive, or if takes months before you are even told what is wrong with you (leaving you to think the worst!).
I completely understand your comment about feeling like you have got something crawling in your ear - I quite often react as if something has just flown into my ear and I try to get it out (which can be quite embarrassing when in public!!)
My tinnitus is a constant high pitched whine in both ears and pretty loud too!
I am assuming that the problems I am experiencing are down to an AN, but I have problems processing noise once my ears have received it - which doesn't seem to be something that features in the 'typical' AN symptoms!
That may be the subject of a separate post!
Oh well, I guess it is only two weeks today (yes, Sunday) since the scan - so next week may bring some news.
I hope you find some relief from your tinnitus, although I know how difficult that can be.
Take care and thanks for taking the time to write.
xx