Hello,
My mother was in the watch and wait phase for her AN for several years. Last May, her walking deteriorated to the point that she could barely shuffle around, her balance was horrible, she had incontinence and finally severe dementia which scared my father enough to take her to the doctor. I live 1200 miles away but had to make two trips cross country to make sure someone asked the right questions. They diagnosed her with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus and said she needed a shunt. I spent untold hours trying to get someone to tell me that this was connected to the AN, but to no avail. Every neurologist and neurosurgeon there told me it was unrelated. She did have the shunt prodedure at the end of May which dramatically improved all of her symptoms. The report the surgeon sent to her primary care doctor said "it appears that this was not NPH but actually caused by the AN affecting the ability to absorb the CSF." Are you kidding me? DUH!!!! I was incredibly frustrated. When she went back for her follow up with her ENT who was monitoring the tumor, he didn't even do a new MRI, just knew from the ones in May that it had grown and suggested the Gamma Knife procedure. She did that in September and we are waiting for an appt later this month to see if there has been any reduction in size or at the least no more growth. In the meantime, it is very hard for me to monitor her from such a distance. My dad tells me that she seems to be extremely moody. Very happy one minute and unreasonably angry the next. Her other complaints include a loss of taste and lack of appetite. I notice that while the dementia is gone, her short term memory has definitely been affected. Do these symtoms seem normal for this situation or should I be pressing them to get the CSF pressure checked? Anyone have similar issues?
