Mark Ruffalo Recalls the Left Side of His Face Being ‘Totally Paralyzed’ After Having Brain Tumor Removed

Mark Ruffalo reflects on his brain tumor diagnosis more than two decades ago.

The Poor people star, 56, appeared on Monday’s episode SmartLess podcast with hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. During the show, the actor recalled how he was diagnosed with benign vestibular schwannoma in 2001.

“I had a brain tumor after the success You can count on me,” he said, noting that he discovered the tumor after dreaming about it. “It was unlike any other dream I’ve ever had. It was like, ‘You have a brain tumor.’ It wasn’t even a voice. It was just the pure realization, ‘You have a brain tumor and you need to deal with it now.'”

Ruffalo admitted the dream was “so intense” that he went to the doctor for a CAT scan after feeling “a sense of doom.” At that time, the only symptom he had was an ear infection.

“The nurse is calling the doctor, I could hear them talking in the other room. She comes in, she’s a bit zombie-like, and she says, ‘You’ve got a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball, and we don’t know what it is. We can’t say until the biopsy is done,’ he said.

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Sunrise Coigney and Mark Ruffalo.

Bryan Bedder/Variety/Penske Media via Getty

The the Avengers Star said the tumor was benign, but he needed surgery to remove the mass. Rufallo said he ultimately decided to keep the diagnosis a secret from his wife, Sunrise Coigney, who was pregnant and days away from the birth of their first child, son Keen, now 22.

Ruffalo told Coigny about his health a week after their son was born and the night before his appointment to “meet with the neurologist” and come up with a treatment plan.

“When I told Sunny, she thought I was joking at first,” he said on the show. “And then she just burst into tears and said, ‘I always knew you’d die young.'”

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Isabella Strahan, 19, poses in a bikini with her twin sister Sophia after being diagnosed with a brain tumour

Ruffalo had a benign tumor surgically removed. The star was told that during the procedure there was a 20% chance of “killing” a nerve on the left side of his face and a 70% chance of losing hearing in his left ear.

“[I am] I am completely deaf in one ear, and when I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed”, he recalled the consequences of the operation. “I couldn’t even close my eyes. I spoke through my mouth.”

The paralysis eventually disappeared a year later, but the actor is still dealing with hearing loss.

“Take my hearing, but let me keep my face and let me be a father to these children,” he recalled his thoughts at the time. Ruffalo and Coigney later had two more children, daughters Bella Noche and Odette.

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Source: HIS Education