April 14th, 2009 = A phone technician and a neurosurgeon meet

I decided to drag my roommate, Ben along to my appointment with Dr. Robert Daniels, the Neurosurgeon. Ben works in management at Spectrum Health, at the Blodgett campus(2 miles from the downtown campus). He has worked at Spectrum for a long time(6 years, at least), and knows some of the doctors, etc. so I thought he'd be a good person to bring as he's familiar with medical terms also.
We got there about 15 minutes before my appointment started, and it seems like we sat in the lobby for about 8 days before the nurse-lady took us back to a room. Then we waited for what seemed like about 2 and a half decades until the Dr. came in(in actuality, it was probably ten minutes). I was very comfortable with his personality and the way he talked to me. He explained that because of the large size of the tumor, and my young age, radiation is not an option for me. (Just so you know, I'm not going to go into scientific detail about certain things, for example why radiation isn't a viable option for someone who's 25. It isn't cut and dry, and I don't want people to say, "well, I read a study that..." So I'll just leave some of the background out.) There are two viable surgery options to get access to my tumor.
Option 1: Translabyrinthine = They drill behind my ear, and I am guaranteed to lose whatever hearing I have now, as they 'go in blind' and go through my hearing nerve.
Option 2: Retrosiggmoid = They cut part of my skull out, behind my head and go in thru that hole. There is roughly a 50/50 shot at retaining my hearing.
Here is a link with more info on the types of surgery if you are interested:
http://www.dinagoldin.com/anarchive/approaches.htm
Dr. Daniels also used the official term, Acoustic Neuroma(also know as Acoustic Schwannoma) and a Meningioma. Up until this point, I thought (from self diagnosis on the internet and how Dr. Hart described it) it was for sure an Acoustic Neuroma tumor. But a Meningioma is slightly different, as it grows from the inside lining of the skull, as opposed to an AN, which grows from the sheathing of the hearing nerve. (www.anausa.org has a ton of quality info regarding AN's) Because of the low res MRI I had at MMPC, Dr. Daniels was unable to determine exactly what tumor I have. So, of course, had to make yet another appointment for FOUR more MRI's, a brain and 3 spines(More on that later). While he described the technical differences of the tumor, I got out of it that one is bad and the other is bad. It's kind of like, would you rather get punched in the gut or kicked in the gut? Who cares, they both hurt. Either way, I have a tumor that is crushing/constricting my hearing nerve(a cable) and it's not allowing all the signals to get through. He used the example of an electrical wire. That's what it really is also, your nerves send electrical signals to your brain. Pretty cool, huh?
Dr. Daniels explained that priority #1 is to preserve my facial nerve. The facial and hearing nerve are actually bundled together at their base, and split off as they go. If the tumor is 'sticky' and attaches to the facial nerve, Dr. Daniels said he will leave a portion of the tumor on my facial nerve, in hopes that my face will full recover movement after surgery. Priority #2 is to get all the tumor out, and Priority #2.1 is to preserve my hearing. I told him I absolutely agree.
I asked him how many of these surgeries he's done, and his answer was "I stopped counting a long time ago." He also said that if you're not good at brain surgery, you don't stay in business very long. That is a good point. He has worked with Dr. Keller (The second brain surgeon who will be all up in my skull) for over ten years.
Ben and I spent close to two hours talking with Dr. Daniels, and not once did he act like he was disinterested, or in a hurry. I am 100% confident with his abilities to take a part of my skull out, cut a tumor out, and sew me back up.
That's not to say there is no risk. This is brain surgery. He said sometimes they have to move the brain out of the way, and there is a possiblity of stroke, recurring headaches, paralysis, etc. But to end on a positive note, he said he did an AN surgery a while back on a 30 year old, and within 8 weeks he was playing basketball again. That is a pretty good success story. I hope to be running and biking again before the snow flies this year.