My name is Sammy & I was diagnosied with Acoustic Neuroma in January 2007. I was cared for by Dr. Sahni & Dr. Shaia @ Johnson Willis Medical Center. My tumor was 3 cm in size therefore I had to have the surgery which took 10 hours. I had wonderful service by both the doctors & the hospital staff. Not only did they take care of me they took care of my family during my stay @ JWM. Dr. Sahni was not biased about the surgery or the gamma knife. He let me make the decision, however he did discuss my situation with other Acoustic Neuroma specialist. Due to the size of my tumor he recommended the surgery because of my age (58) & my health. A portion of tumor was on the facial & hearing nerve. Dr. Sahni explained to me that I would lose my hearing and there was a chance that I could have partial facial paralysis but he would be very cautious when removing the nerve and if he thougt it would effect my face that he would stop the surgery. I did lose my hearing in my left ear but did not have any paralysis in my face. Because Dr. Sahni could not remove the entire tumor he explained to me that I would have to come back at a later time and have Gamma Knife. Three months after my surgery, I went back and had Gamma Knife to stop future growth. Hopefully, the Gamma Knife will cut off the food supply and eventually the tumor will die and be absorbed by the body.
I go back to see Dr. Sahni in February and he said that he did not expect the tumor to be smaller but stated that it should be a different color. He also stated that over the next couple of years the tumor should dry up and be disolved by the body.
I would highly recommend both Dr. Sahni and Shaia for anyone w/ Acoustic Neuroma.
If you have Acoustic Neuroma and would like to talk to someone who has actually gone through the surgery you can give me a call at 540-483-1030. (Sammy Chitwood)
