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Facts: Mary Williamson, age 54, married 32 years, two sons (one in high school, one in college), kindergarten teacher for 23 years, and first grade teacher for nine years.

The symptoms, how it all started
Mary Williamson, a kindergarten teacher, went in for her yearly check-up in July 2004, upon which routine blood tests showed an increase in her liver enzyme count. She was told to wait and see, and that the doctor would test her again in the fall. In October, she had her blood tested again, and her liver enzyme count had increased even more. She went to several doctors to determine a diagnosis that would explain the increased enzyme count. Mary scheduled several appointments and ultrasounds, after which, the doctors checked the most likely culprits for the increased enzyme: her liver, spleen, and pancreas.

Around this same time, Mary noticed that if she slept on a certain side at night, she couldn’t hear her alarm clock in the morning. One day at the school where she teaches, they were conducting hearing tests on the first graders. She asked her good friend, the school nurse conducting the testing, if she could be tested. She completely failed the hearing test on her right ear. At that point, she instinctively knew something was seriously wrong and that the doctors, with whom she had been scheduling appointments for the enzyme increase, were looking in the wrong direction for her diagnosis.

As a teacher, she had a hard time fitting in the doctor appointments around school. Because of Mary’s commitment to her students, rather than prepare for a substitute, sometimes she would schedule ultrasounds at 6 am so she wouldn’t miss school, but in cases where she had to take time off of work, she would take the pains to schedule five appointments in one day, to cut down on her time away from the classroom. One allergist she met with hoped that she had a very advanced and neglected sinus infection. She had x-rays taken, but they didn’t show the true root of the problem. She met with all kinds of doctors: family physicians, an audiologist, and an orthopedic surgeon to name a few.

The doctors’ appointments, anguish and frustration
After 14 doctor appointments, seven different doctors and over four months later, she still had no logical explanation or diagnosis of her symptoms, the most prominent one being her hearing loss. It wasn’t until she went to Dr. Alan Langman, whose primary specialty is Neurotology, that she had gotten one step closer to an accurate diagnosis. The doctor explained the possibilities of what could be causing the hearing loss. As he was explaining, Mary jokingly said to Dr. Langman, “What? Do I have a brain tumor?” in reference to one of the possible causes of her hearing loss. To pinpoint what was causing her hearing loss, he ordered Mary an MRI. When he got the test results back, a brain tumor is exactly what she had. Acoustic Neuroma, a non-cancerous tumor that can develop on the acoustic nerve near the brain stem, was the diagnosis. She couldn’t hear her alarm clock in the morning because the tumor was putting pressure on the acoustic nerve, interfering with signals that allow her to hear.

The diagnose, the procedure
Upon diagnosis, Dr. Langman referred Mary to his colleague and surgical partner Dr. Steve Klein, a neurosurgeon at Northwest Hospital. After picking up her husband to go to her doctor’s appointment, she met Dr. Klein, who, in the midst of his busy, post-operation schedule, sat with Mary and her husband and discussed her treatment options for over two hours. Mary and her husband evaluated the options with Dr. Klein, and decided that surgery was the best way to go. Mary had total faith in Dr. Klein’s expertise.

Concerned for her smile
From the point when she first noticed the hearing loss, other minor symptoms developed. Occasionally she had trouble taking one step down to leave her bedroom because as discovered later, the balance nerve on the one side was involved in the tumor. In addition, her upcoming surgery brought the possibility that Mary would lose control of her facial nerve. Mary was worried she would lose her smile because of the surgery. As a teacher, Mary depended on her smile to communicate with her students. With her diagnosis in early December, Mary’s chose to have surgery in January, after the holidays. She told few people except her family, including her two sons. Prior to the holiday break Mary drafted a carefully crafted email to her school co-workers explaining her diagnosis and upcoming surgery, and waited until she was the only person left at school, to ensure people wouldn’t read her email until after their vacation. She didn’t want to sadden everyone’s holidays with her news. At the New Year, when school resumed again she wrote a letter to all of her student’s parents (and consequently her students) letting them know, so the parents would prepare to console their kids, if they needed it.

She thought she might not “come back”
Although Mary had a positive outlook on her situation, she was also aware of what could happen to her. She hoped for the best, prepared for the worst, and was ready to accept whatever came. The night before the surgery, Mary was restless. So much in fact that she decided she was going to prepare to bake a coffee cake the next morning. She woke up early on surgery day and baked the coffee cake. She enclosed a note with the cake and gave it to her surgical team, as an incentive to do a really good job that day. Eight hours later, she came out of surgery with no complications. In the recovery room, she needed to know if her facial nerve was damaged during surgery. She consistently asked the nurses if she was smiling because she wasn’t sure herself. To her relief, Mary’s smile was preserved. Her facial nerve was not compromised during the surgery. Four family members took six hour shifts at her bedside, rotating constantly while she was at Northwest Hospital.

When Mary got home from the hospital, she was on such a positive road to recovery that she didn’t even use the make-shift room they had prepared on the main floor of their home. Mary was pumped with so much adrenaline and excitement to be alive that, five days after surgery, Mary went for a walk. The following week, she went to the zoo.

Recovering, one day at a time
100% recovery rarely happens with neurological treatments because that area is not designed for alterations. As Mary began to readjust to life as usual, she lost residual hearing in her right ear. Because of this, she felt she wouldn’t be able to give 100% to her students, and if she couldn’t do that, then she decided not to return to the classroom, one year shy of planned retirement. She misses teaching very much, but is busier now than she’s ever been. She spends more time visiting with family and friends, her youngest son is graduating from high school and she’s making a quilt for him. She volunteers in a first grade class room and plans to take a 15-day rafting trip down the Colorado River with her husband. She said, “I enjoy living. I am in love with life.”

She said that Dr. Klein saved her life. Because of all the unfortunate misdiagnoses at the beginning of her ordeal, and because of the wonderful care and treatment she received at Northwest Hospital, she is changing all of her doctor lineage to align with Northwest Hospital. If something like this ever happens to her again, she can rest assured that she will be referred to the doctors at Northwest Hospital who have the knowledge and expertise to treat and care for her.

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