I understand your anxiety and sense of urgency. No one wants to hear their doctor say the words "brain tumor". I felt the same way upon diagnosis for a 1.4cm AN in 2015. I immediately read everything I could find, ran out to see 3 doctors here in Houston and reached out to House and Keck. Even though I didn't have noticeable issues, I had an ENG to measure balance deficit, which turned out to be 60% in one of the categories. The ability of the brain to compensate is amazing. I did have profound hearing loss in the affected ear, but I'd been living with hearing loss since I was 36 (I'm 56) and amplification (aids) helped and still help quite a bit. When I recovered from the initial OMG! response and took the time to educate myself about the condition and the treatment options, I decided to watch and wait.
5 years later I'm still watching and waiting. The hearing in my left ear has slowly continued to decline as expected, but treatment would not have improved that outcome. The surgical option would have just taken what I had left. I still notice occasional minor balance issues, but they're minor and from what the docs say, the best I can expect from any course of treatment is that my balance will stabilize, meaning just not get worse.
My last MRI in January 2019 the thing had grown to 1.9cm. So I'll go back for another MRI in a few months after the COVID situation stabilizes. If it has grown more than 2-3cm since the last one, I'll probably get serious about scheduling SRS. If no growth or only 1cm, I might wait another year.
I will do SRS when it's time. I'm definitely NOT doing a craniotomy by choice. My thought is even in the best hands the morbidity risks of surgery just don't balance out with even the best-case outcomes, especially given my current symptoms. If surgery meant there was a chance I'd get my hearing back and reduce the tinnitus, maybe. But surgery will just take the rest of the hearing I have left now and could easily make the tinnitus worse. Zero upside in terms of improved symptoms and quality of life going the surgical route as far as I can tell.
The only upside to surgery in my case seems to be having the thing gone for good. But SRS is over 90-95% effective in stopping further growth in every study I've seen with much lower and less serious morbidity risk. I suppose walking around with a tumor in your head freaks out some people so much that they just want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. I had that initial response too until I took the time to learn more about the condition. These days, I rarely ever think about it.
In your narrative you say your tumor is fast growing. Have you had multiple MRI's ? How do you know it's fast growing and what does fast growing mean exactly ?
As other have said here, these tumors, while serious, are almost never emergencies especially if you are asymptomatic. I'm just a guy on the internet and certainly not a doc, but I would very skeptical of anyone pressuring me into immediate treatment, especially a craniotomy, especially absent symptoms, especially in the current COVID environment when you'd have to do it alone in the hospital, and especially given your other health conditions.
Again, this absolutely isn't medical advice, it's just one man's experience and opinion and you know what they say opinions are like, everybody's got one. But watch and wait is a very legitimate medical option in many cases and worthy of consideration, as one of the docs with whom you spoke seems to have advised you.
Check out the watch and wait threads and radiation threads here on the site for additional perspective. This forum and the ANA is a wonderful resource for all of us. This diagnosis sucks and there isn't any real happy news. But there are definitely worse things out there. This is manageable with help and education. You're not alone.
I sincerely wish you the very best and hope you find peace with all of your decisions on this journey.
