Just wanted to send on a little update. It looks like surgery is in my future, translab October 1 to be exact. After my recheck this week, I am now officially a gamma knife failure as my tumor has continued to grow (it's borderline small/medium). My neurosurgeon at Mayo explained the surgery will just get more complicated the more the tumor grows. It was larger at my last 6-month visit, but he gave it an extra six months in hopes that it would stabilize.
Losing my hearing on the right is not much of an issue for me at this point--it's pretty much already gone--and my brain seems to have compensated for my imbalance over the years. Whether they can save my facial nerve is the big question mark, but we are hoping to save it. It's "100%" I will have either temporary or permanent facial paralysis on the right, but I know things can be done down the road to help.
This is not what we wanted to hear, but I feel confident in my care. I'm just unlucky to be in that 7% of gamma knife failures. While I'm still searching for what good can come out of all this, my faith is strong, I'm hanging in there, and I refuse to wallow (my new motto
)! I'm so thankful I attended the conference this year. I knew what questions to ask of my surgeon and learned so much at the conference. Not all of it good, but that's the reality of it. I told my husband about the caregivers section here and hopefully he'll use that as he needs to. He's been a great support, and every little bit helps!
Denise
