Hello everyone! I'm new here, and looking for some guidance regarding different surgeries approaches considering my hearing in the affected ear. Bear in mind that I was diagnosed on 1/7 so I've only spoken to one neuro-otologist so far.
I've been recommended to have surgery on this tumor, and the doc's preference is a translabyrinthine approach. The reasoning was that my hearing isn't salvageable. I forget what I scored for the pure tone measure but I remember my word distinguishing was at 30% (funny note, I legit thought I heard the words 'wombat,' 'helipad,' and 'mopey' were on the test. The test made of monosyllabic words. Go figure). At first I was okay with this recommendation, but right now I'm having second thoughts about giving up on my hearing. I'm not under the illusion that my hearing is going to get better. I also was set on getting a CROS hearing aid anyways back when we thought my ear issues was Meniere's disease or some viral scarring. In reflection, I think I'm starting to feel just how much of an emotional attachment I have to my hearing now that the treatment option involves complete elimination of what I have left.
So my question for y'all is for those who made the decision between trying to preserve hearing or not, how did you make it? Some additional factors I'm considering are the size of the tumor (2.7 cm) and the fact that I'm already feeling some facial numbness from it's location (getting a little too cozy with my other nerves). I'm also in the middle of a graduate program in mental health counseling, so my hearing ability is pretty crucial to my career plans. Granted, my hearing loss hasn't interfered with counseling individuals. But anything involved three or more people talking at once has been a blast let me tell ya.
Cheers!
