Marla Bronstein

“Most AN patients recover well from their treatment and go on happily with their lives. Unfortunately, some of the few who do have complications are much more vocal, and their stories are very accessible. Marla’s story offers balance. I would recommend this book to give hope and comfort to any person recently diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma or considering undertaking treatment.”

Farrokh Farrokhi, MD, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA

“A Whole New Normal walks readers through the journey of a person who is confronted with the treatment for an acoustic neuroma. The author gives an honest and vulnerable testimony to the complex emotions, fears and challenges people face with such a life disrupting experience. As a surgeon who treats scores of people for this condition every year, I value this book as an asset for people in all phases of their treatment path.”

Douglas Backous, M.D. FACS

Medical Director of the Center for Hearing and Skull Base Surgery, Swedish Medical Center

Marla Bronstein was born in Long Island, New York, and moved to the west coast as a child. She attended high school in southern California and went to college at UC Berkeley. She received a BA in Linguistics in 1979. Marla's favorite language was ASL, and for a short while entertained the thought of being a lawyer who specialized in serving the needs of the Deaf community. She became a paralegal and quickly discovered the life of a lawyer was not for her. 20 years later, Marla changed careers and finally dabbled in sign language interpreting, office administration, non-profit social service work, and finally, non-profit arts. For fun, she is involved in local community theater. She has acted, directed, stage managed, costumed, painted sets for and written scripts for, and received acting and directing awards for numerous short and full length plays. All the while, she continued writing stories, letters, blogs, commentaries and on-line journals.