First consult yesterday - now a new member of the 'Watch and Wait' group!

[mac84]

Diagnosed on 10/13/14 with 1.2 cm AN.

I had my first consult yesterday - Dr. Rivas at Vanderbilt.  First class facility and felt good about things immediately. They see about 300 new AN patients every year. He advised that they operate on roughly 100 of those, do Gamma Knife on 10 to 20 and the remainder are 'watch and wait'.  We talked about tumor location, symptoms (good word recognition but higher frequency loss in the affected ear and high pitched tinnitus but NO dizziness or balance issues) and he said he'd prefer to not make any decision about treatment now since the diagnosis was very recent. He wants to see if it is actually growing first.

His comment was that in a good many cases the AN gets inflamed and causes symptoms...but may not be any bigger than it has been.  He left the decision up to me after we talked about things for quite a while. I agreed that we'd wait 6 months and have another MRI there at Vanderbilt. At that time we'll see what things look like and what has happened with symptoms over this time period.

For now I'll keep on keeping on and visit the boards to see what others are doing. I'll post as I feel appropriate. Good luck everyone.

[jsanders1379]

Sounds like you're on the right track. I did exactly the same thing- W&W for 6 mo. & then repeat MRI. Mine was growing & I chose GK. Good luck to you! and welcome! this is a great support/resource group...

[ANGuy]

I'm also in the same boat as you.  I had my first MRI and my 6 month one will be this December and I'll go from there. 

[mac84]

Thanks Jeanne and AN Guy.....

We'll see what happens!  I'm finding ways to deal w/ the high pitched Tinnitus... 

[ANGuy]

Thanks Jeanne and AN Guy.....

We'll see what happens!  I'm finding ways to deal w/ the high pitched Tinnitus... 

For me, tinnitus is best dealt with through distraction.  If you sit in a quiet room and focus on the tinnitus, it will get under your skin real quick.  Music, white noise, building a ship in a bottle, anything that either covers the sound, or occupies your mind, will make you forget all about it.

[mac84]

Correcto.....for me it's listening to the radio online in my office as I sit here. At night it's the box fan I've used for years.

[ANGuy]

I listen to satellite radio all day at work and when I go to sleep, I set the sleep timer on the TV and put on the old shows I grew up with on the digital broadcast channels like MeTV.  The shows don't keep me awake because I've seen every episode a million times and I know the dialog by heart.