John B. Leonard
A response to the question of recovery speed and whether I still had the
deficits after 14 yrs. that I had immediately after surgery, sent 7/6/04):
The question was, had I recovered totally - jbl 7/28/04
That's a real hard question to answer. I guess I'd have to say not totally.
Part of it was waiting for a while, and also getting adapted to what I could
and couldn't do.
Realize I was a private pilot before the surgery. And it was during a
biennial medical exam that the doctor found the bt symptoms. Unfortunately,
those symptoms meant I was disqualified from flying again. I don't think I
was very pleasant to be around for a while after that.
The company I had worked for messed around for a long time until it became
clear that they had no intention of letting me come back.
Luckily I had a fairly good long term disability policy thru work which has,
and still does, helped a lot. Also, part of the policy required me to apply
for Social Security Disability. That was a good/bad situation. Good in
that the SS folks were very nice, bad in that once it went to the state for
their approval, the idiots didn't want to make a decision, so they forwarded
it to SS in Maryland. I had to write my Congressman to get them to decide,
which was in my favor, thankfully.
I guess I should tick off where I was after the surgery,
and where I am now
1. Balance - Terrible after the surgery, much better now. Most of it is in
the ankle muscles. I still walk like I'm drunk.
2. Double vision - Terrible after the surgery, much better now (thru eye
muscle surgery 7 years after and some prisms in my glasses)
3. Weakness - Terrible after the surgery, better now (still bad on the
right side, better on the left)
4. Driving - After the surgery, forget it, with the double vision and
fatigue. It was a year before I tried to drive. Now I've gone thru 2 cars
and have done about 70,000 mi. in the 14 yrs since.
5. Fatigue - Terrible then, better now, but still a big limitation.
6. Fine motor control - Rotten on the right side, so-so on the left.
Today, it's still not-so-good on the right side.
7. Depression - I don't know if it was due to the surgery, or the
realization that I wasn't the same as I was, but I had moderate depression,
which is handled now by light doses of Prozac every other day.
8. Blood pressure - ok before the surgery, bad and fluctuating after, on
Hyzaar now. Under control.
9. Ear ringing - bad after the surgery, better now (a mixture of hearing
aids and just getting adapted to it.)
10. Facial/Eye twitch - terrible after surgery, pretty good now.
11. Hiccoughs/gag reflex/swallowing - TERRIBLE after the surgery. I threw
up a lot. But the hiccoughs went away within a month, the gag reflex
problems pretty much went away after 6-12 months, and for about the last 13
years, I've been doing great.
A lot of that stuff just took time to get better (and I'm talking 2-5
years).
But actually, it's also been a good learning and rewarding time since the
surgery. I've got 5 grandchildren, 3 of which I've seen born and grow up in
the past few years. Family means a lot more, etc. Also, I've been able to
do a lot as a volunteer (Red Cross, ham radio) that I wouldn't have had the
time for before.
Hope this helps some.
John B. Leonard
DeKalb IL
Subependymoma 4th vent. 1990