For starters, there's not much you can do about the anxiety. It's going to take you a lot of different places. You're also going to hear a heck of a lot of different directions you can take, from holistic remedies to "just watch it and it'll go away" to "WHY AREN'T YOU ON THE WAY TO THE HOSPITAL!!!?!?!?!?" Ignore them all. People are going to second-guess your doctors, as well as your own decisions, as people will naturally do when it doesn't match their opinion on the matter.. Second opinions, etc. are great, but you really have to remember that there's different approaches for this, and any given doctor is likely to have their own favorite, their own opinion, etc.: remember that favorite is probably what that doctor would be best at to begin with, so you've got to figure that into the approach.
Secondly, remember that everything's all about worst case scenario here. They AREN'T going to tell you that everything's going to be okay, then go in, find minor complications, and you get left with the impression that they screwed things up and made it worse. They're going to give you something on the far end of that "outcome" scale, so they look like a hero when the actual outcome is much better. Just remember that before you let any explained possibilities get you down..
I ended up doing a GK; the next-to-last doctor in this process said it was basically 50/50, GK vs surgery, and whichever I wanted to choose. I picked the GK for the reduced downtime involved in that vs. the "regular" surgery, which sent me to his colleague in this process.. That last doctor ended up explaining that an actual surgery would be really tough, and GK was definitely the way to go. We did it, and I seem to be much better off than pretty much any of those worst-case scenarios that they all laid out for me beforehand. Still have some hearing, balance problems ended up all but disappearing, and tinnitus seems to be my major lingering effect of the whole thing.
MRI report: I got a lot more out of actually looking at the MRI myself than I did any of the reports.. again, nobody in the medical field wants to leave the ball short of the green.
Stress of diagnosis: I guess we all go through that. I just kept on going and did what I could to just keep my mind on something else. Every so often I'd crawl in a hole about it, but just staying busy was my main method for keeping it from being anywhere near debilitating.
Bleach is okay in moderation. remember, we chlorinate water.
Finally, and I'm sure I'll get some people here bent out of shape at me, worry more about you and what you've got going on than you are about what doctor you select. There's doctors all over the world that do this, and successfully so. There's some that get a lot of "press" in the AN community, but there's plenty of others that are quite capable of handling it. it's not like it's brain surgery.. oh. never mind. it is. My point is that a lot of people stress themselves out more trying to convince themselves that their doctor is the #1 AN doctor in the universe than they do about just how you can get this taken care of and fit it into your life: there's a lot of guys scattered all over the world that are pretty good at this, and the chances are really, really slim that whoever you may end up with is learning how to do a Middle Fossa approach on Youtube the night before the surgery..
If there was every any encompassing advice I'd give after my own experience to try to make this process go better, smoother, more quickly, and less painful and stressful, it's just to chill the heck out. Have a beer or six. Go play some golf. You might fall over during a swing as a result of balance issues, but you just have to laugh at it rather than freaking out about it. It's going to work out as well as it is going to no matter what you do, barring something really stupid and off the wall in your decision making. Just listen to the doctors, your own gut feelings, and apply them to your life in general to make your decisions.
If nothing else, remember that you're going to be the foremost expert in just where the best and most comfortable MRI machines are in your area before this is over..
