Mark Ruffalo Recalls Left Side of His Face Being Paralyzed After Having Brain Tumor Removal
Mark Ruffalo Recalls the Left Side of His Face Being 'Totally Paralyzed' After Having Brain Tumor Removed https://t.co/T1UNHmCdZS
- People (@people) January 23, 2024
Mark Ruffalo appeared on Monday's episode of the podcast SmartLess hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett where he discusses being diagnosed with a benign vestibular schwannoma in 2001.
Mark's discovery was interesting as he had a dream of having a tumor, which was so intense he went to the doctor. His only symptom at the time was an ear infection.
"I had a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count on Me," he said, noting that he discovered the tumor after having a dream about it. “It wasn't like any other dream I'd ever had. It was just like, 'You have a brain tumor.' It wasn't even a voice. It was just pure knowledge, 'You have a brain tumor, and you have to deal with it immediately.'"
He goes on to talk about how a nurse tells him he has a mass behind his left ear the size of a golf ball. Mark kept his diagnosis a secret as his wife Sunrise was days away giving birth to their son.
"When I told Sunny about it, first she thought I was joking," he said on the show. "And then she just burst into tears and said, 'I always knew you were gonna die young.'" (op note: well damn lol)
Once he had gone in for the procedure to remove the tumor, there was a 20% chance of killing the nerve on the left side of his face and a 70% he would have lost hearing in his left ear.
“[I am] completely deaf in one ear, and when I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed,” he recalled of the surgery’s aftermath. “I couldn’t even close my eye. I was talking out the side of my mouth.”
The paralysis took a year to go away, however he still deals with hearing loss today.
“Take my hearing, but let me keep the face and just let me be the father to these kids,” he recalled thinking at the time.
Source