There are so many moments when your body is trying to communicate important information. I think it can be really easy to ignore it or assume that I can just power through, and those signals aren’t important. Throughout my entire brain tumor journey, I have learned that good communication with my body is vital. And what my body has communicated and needed has changed greatly over time.

I first realized something wasn’t right when I couldn’t use my phone with my left ear. At first, I assumed that I had a sinus infection as I had recently been battling a cold. When I continued to struggle with hearing on my left side, I realized I needed to follow up and see my doctor. I thought I was being a hypochondriac as a family member had recently experienced sudden hearing loss in one ear. My primary doctor ordered a hearing test just “to check if I was crazy or not,” and that started me down the path to an MRI and an Acoustic Neuroma diagnosis.

After surgery to remove my tumor, every day my body was changing and experiencing different needs. I thought that recovery would be linear, getting better each day. Instead, I found that what I could do and how much rest I needed could vary day to day. I needed to keep working to improve and strengthen, but not overdo so that I set myself back. Trying to find that moving target was a huge challenge. Listening to my body and responding to what was needed was extremely important, instead of relying on expectations or what I felt I ought to be doing.

Now that I am in my post treatment years, I still find that I need to tune in to what my body is communicating. I have learned that when I am under the weather, I tend to struggle more with some of my after effects from my tumor. An example of this is that if I am sick or sleep deprived, I always have a headache with it. I also have to fight a lot more for my balance when I am overtired. So when I start getting super clumsy, I know I am done in for the day and need to start taking it easy. I don’t have facial paralysis, but I do sometimes have an eye twitch when I am feeling worn out. I recently had an eye twitch for a week straight, and I was wondering what was going on. I kept thinking I must be so overtired, or worrying something was impacting my facial nerve. As it turned out, I had appendicitis. The eye twitch was just my body’s warning mechanism that things were out of line. It is important to pay attention to these cues.

No one knows your health as well as you do. Your body gives you really important information that can help you both figure out what you need as well as suss out when things have gone awry. I have a tendency to be a little too stiff upper lip, and push through things. But my body has been forcibly teaching me how important it is not to ignore or pass over vital information that is being conveyed. I have found that as I have improved my ability to read my body’s messages, I have been able to do a much better job maintaining my health.