Thank you, everybody, for helping me think these options and probabilities through clearly. I also got alot of clear thinking from the UPittsburgh site's video "Comparing Options", and other things on that site. Thanks, Mac.
I'm glad, in my original frenzy, I made alot of "absolute"-ish kind of statements because in correcting me, you guys have clarified many things and made me dig deeper into research. I'm thinking that a new thread should be started that stays at the top of the list (like Phyl's thread on WTT) called "Where do I start?" with a basic outline of how to proceed in one's thinking. First item, for example, might be:
Factors that will affect your decision:
Size of your AN
Location of your AN and what other brain structures it's impacting
Your current symptoms and their relative importance TO YOU
The possible side effects of procedures and their relative importance to you
Your age and health otherwise
Your gut reactions to different procedures
etc.
Overall decisions to be made:
Wait and watch OR some kind of intervention
If you choose intervention, microsurgery or radiosurgery
If microsurgery, which kind
If radiosurgery, which kind
Which medical team?
etc
Some basic resources:
ANA
ANA Discussion board - each post will give you one little (or big) additional perspective on your decision.
Some sites that the longer-term ANA members agree are accurate
etc
Common abbreviations used:
SSD - single sided deafness
Retro - retrosigmoid microsurgery, one of the choices
Translab - translab_____, one of the choices
GK - GammaKinfe, one of the choices
CK - CyberKnife, one of he choices
etc
Maybe a few examples with specifics - How Brucifer came to his conclusion, Phyl came to hers, etc...a couple of each kind of decision.
Anyway, it's an idea. Maybe the above is already in some form in the ANA literature which I haven't gotten yet.
______
So, another statement to which some of you will say, "What? !" I made my decision yesterday to go with GammaKnife. Scheduled for July 19th. I've always made life-altering decisions sort of suddently, but after lots of research (or plodding experience), and they've always turned out good for me. I am a strong believer in instinct-with-intellect.
My AN (to become my "little mummy" sometime in the next year!) is of a size and location that now is a good time to act. My husband Clyde and I are retiring to Panama in the next two years, and although medical care is excellent there and I can come back to US for anything I want to medically, I'd rather do something now. And I have the feeling that my symptoms are getting worse; it could be the stress, but my instinct says it's not just that.
My brain surgery experience with hubby Ted's tumor and Mommy's cerebral hemorrhage (and, actually, Daddy's parkinson's too) was LESS the fact that they died and MORE the constant one-"solution"-leads-to-another-problem, etc etc etc etc (my folks lived 9 years with these conditions - I'm an only child who loved my parents dearly and lived in the same town they did, so it was a daily experience for me). That's why the microsurgery is very scary to me. Not the tiny possibility of death, especially in the case of AN surgery. Ted's tumor was on the medula (breathing, swallowing, etc) and I personally think that the lights and noise of being in the hospital 2 months is what did him in, but that's another story (which BTW they're starting to study scientifically). Plus he was in his 70s; who knows what was the real cause.
I won't go on and on with why I made my decision (well... I already HAVE gone on and on!!!), just wanted you to know. Wish I could be in Philly next weekend, one of the 'hometowns' of my life that I love, but I'm going to be in a cabin at Mt. Rainier, getting a massage, soaking in the mountain atmosphere that I love.
Hugs,
Dana