Hi Kathee and welcome. Good to have you here participating.... ok, let's try to help answer one by one.
1. Cognitive (thinking) issues... it is being recognized that all brain tumor patients (AN'ers, included) run into these issues... and not sure if you saw it here, but there is a new forum for "Cognitive/emotional" issues. It's a new forum, so discussions are just now beginning, such as handwriting, thinking, etc issues. You may want to take a look at the posts there as many are noting the same as you. You are definately not alone on that.
2. Balance issues post radio-treatment. As you may know from your research, AN's can affect our hearing/balance, so... regardless of which treatment option you choose, our hopes are that post-treatment, these things will stabilize (or.... possibly resolve). I have major balance issues related to my AN and another medical issue (non-AN related) and have been walking with a cane/walking stick for years (too young to use one but... I claim its my fashion statement
) I honestly don't know of many that had their balance issues cured by treatment, but there are some that note that balance issues had stabilized post-radio. I do not find that my CK treatment "stablized" my balance, but it seems very tolerable. Over time, for me, I have learned to adapt to it, sometimes use it to my advantage (ie: "honey, I can't bend down to scoop the dog's poo... can you do it for me?"
) but most of all... I know I have my cane to help the cause. I do a great job "wall-walking" and in time, my hope is that, regardless of what you decide, that it will calm down for you... and if not... there are ways to work on it (ie: you can do a search here for "vestibular exercises"... there have been great suggestions posted here over the months in the "Balance" forum and other posts).
I hope this helps. Again, welcome.
Phyl
