The Tragedy That Once Left Mark Ruffalo Partially Deaf And Temporarily Paralyzed

Mark Ruffalo is opening up to the public for the first time about his 2001 brain tumor diagnosis and removal, doing so in his appearance on the SmartLess podcast. The actor was found to have a benign vestibular schwannoma shortly after the release of the film "You Can Count on Me."

While conversing with hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett, Ruffalo explained that he dreamed he'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor before actually learning that he carried the mass within him. Haunted by the dream, he scheduled a CAT scan and soon learned that the ear infection he'd been experiencing had been the sole symptom of a golf ball-sized benign tumor behind his left ear. Ruffalo soon met with a specialist, who informed him he had a 70% chance of experiencing diminished hearing in his left ear and a 20% chance of damage occurring to the left side of his face. 

Ruffalo indeed dealt with deafness and temporary paralysis after he had the tumor removed. "[I am] completely deaf in one ear, and when I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed. I couldn't even close my eye. I was talking out the side of my mouth," he said. Eventually, his facial paralysis diminished, though he continues to experience hearing loss. 

The actor admitted he couldn't have gotten through such a trial without his wife's support. However, he temporarily concealed his diagnosis from her for one important reason.

The timing of Mark Ruffalo's brain tumor diagnosis was particularly inauspicious, as his surgery was scheduled just weeks after his wife, Sunrise Coigney, had given birth to their first child. He withheld his medical issue until a week had elapsed after the delivery of their son, Keen. "When I told Sunny about it, first she thought I was joking. And then she just burst into tears and said, 'I always knew you were gonna die young,'" Ruffalo said on the SmartLess podcast.

Together, the couple planned his treatment, with Coigney seeing him through it. He and his wife had two more children since his surgery, and he's had no major health issues of note. Still, he joked on SmartLess about his past diagnosis. "Take my hearing, but let me keep the face and just let me be the father to these kids," Ruffalo quipped.

The diagnosis also put his career in difficult straits. On the upswing after the release of "You Can Count on Me," he had to take time off to recover from his surgery. The actor told New York Magazine that his facial paralysis had him working overtime to keep a part in an M. Night Shyamalan movie, only for his doctors to bar him from acting.

Fortunately for Ruffalo, everything worked out well in the end. In the years that followed, he entered into the superhero pantheon forever by snagging the role of Bruce Banner/The Hulk, though he did find out he was cast in the "Avengers" in a rather weird way.

Since Mark Ruffalo's health situation was serious, he took the recovery equally seriously. The operation to remove the tumor left him with a plate in his head, and in an interview with New York Magazine, the actor admitted how awful the mental side of the experience was — especially since even medical professionals weren't quite sure how things would work out for him in the end. "It was scary, man," Ruffalo described the year-long road to recovery. "It was terrifying."

Apart from dealing with diminished hearing and facial paralysis, Ruffalo's post-surgery troubles featured drugs that caused considerable weight gain, wrecked his balance, and confused his cognitive processes. All of this was enough to do terrible things to one of the most important tools in an actor's kit. "I lost all my confidence," he said. "Just across the board. I completely lost my gut."

Since it was clear that Ruffalo wasn't able to work, he opted to simply vanish from the public eye until he got better. However, turning down important meetings, pulling away from projects, and attempting to mind his own business soon got people gossiping. "It was like, 'Did you hear about Mark Ruffalo? Mark Ruffalo has leukemia. Mark Ruffalo has AIDS,'" the actor said. Fortunately, the bad times didn't last. Ruffalo put out a press release to quell the rumors, recovered from the experience with the help of his family, and was able to continue his rise to stardom.