So… about that scan I thought was happening? Turns out, false alarm. The MRI was booked too early by the team, and I’ve now been bumped back to the correct schedule—May 2025, not this month.
Honestly, it’s a weird feeling. You wind yourself up for the scan—the mental prep, the quiet overthinking, the “what ifs”—and then just like that, the pressure valve releases and you’re left holding a cancelled appointment and a shrug from neurology.
Part of me is relieved. Another part is slightly annoyed that my head had already boarded the MRI express. I’d mentally queued up the tunnel soundtrack, picked my post-scan food spot, and even had a blog post half-written. Oh wait, you’re reading it.
Living with an acoustic neuroma comes with a rhythm of its own. Mine’s 19 x 12 x 12 mm—a mid-sized little menace that’s been totally stable for the past two scans. No growth, no brainstem pressure, no facial symptoms. Just the tinnitus soundtrack and hearing loss on one side, both of which I manage with a hearing aid and a slightly sarcastic attitude.
I’ve been in the “watch and wait” lane since the beginning, and it’s a lane I’m happy to stay in. The logic is simple: don’t poke the bear if the bear’s asleep. And so far, my bear seems content to nap quietly in the corner of my internal anatomy.
But each scan is a checkpoint. A reminder that things could change. That even though everything feels stable, there’s something inside me worth keeping an eye on. And when that reminder comes early—like it just did—it throws you off your rhythm. You go from “Here we go again” to “Oh… never mind.”
Still, the accidental scheduling did have one benefit—it made me realise just how okay I am with the current plan. I wasn’t desperate to intervene. I wasn’t hoping for action. I was hoping for more of the same: stability, no surprises, no reason to trade “watch and wait” for surgery or radiosurgery just yet.
And that’s still the plan.
Radiosurgery might come into the picture eventually—if there’s growth, or change, or pressure. But not now. Not while things are this uneventful. Not when the best treatment is still time, patience, and good monitoring.
So we wait. Not just metaphorically this time—literally. The real scan will happen in May 2025, and until then, life carries on.
I’m still working, still running, still paddleboarding, still nodding along in noisy rooms like I’ve caught every word when I definitely haven’t. Still living with a tumour in my head that’s quiet enough to ignore most of the time. It’s not gone. But it’s not running the show either.
