Hello everyone,
I saw Dr. Guha today for my consult. I was not able to get in to see anyone at my Dr.s clinic due to H1N1 issues.
Dr Guha and Dr Akagami (via email) feel that the weakness in the leg is not associated to the AN but neither had an answer for me for what it might be. I will still see my family physician as soon as I can get in.
In the meanwhile Dr. Guha is in remission for those who were wondering. He says he is feeling well and if I elect to go further in my research with him and his team, he would not be ready to perform this kind of surgery until the spring at least. He is not ready to do surgery tomorrow he said. I told him I wasn't ready for surgery tomorrow either, with a big smile.
Basically he confirmed the diagnosis and went through things as he sees them. He wants me to see the gama knife people to be able to say that I have spoken to them, and heard what they have to say. While he admitted his bias toward surgery, he put me in the middle of the pack regarding whether he would recommend the GK surgery. ie I'm 44, so not too young, but not too old, and according to official stats I've got 35-40 good years left.
He wasn't being off handed, just saying that for a healthy female my age I could consider GK given the associated risks. Also my tumor size the way he measures it, is only 2.1 cm (he doesn't count the part that is extending into the canal).
Comparing the Jun to Oct MRI he sees about 1mm difference. (larger over the time period) but also countered that the slices could be different places. Either way I'm not freaked.
He also wants me to see his Neurotologist Dr. Rutka. He feels he could do either translab or retrosigmoid. My hearing test did not give a score for speech discrimination which is what they wanted, but it does indicate moderate sensory loss in the left ear. He said I should go into surgery expecting to come out SSD, and a realistic expectation for saving the hearing is about 40%.
He wouldn't say what the differences were between retro and TL for the facial nerve, opting to tell me the average for retro is 85-90 acceptable outcome for success, with the caveat that if you include facial weakness in the first 6 months the number is more like 75% successful, 85-90 a few months down the line. Translabrynthine would have slightly better rate of successful outcome than that.
The good news is my facial nerve is not compromised so far. My trigeminal most definitely is being affected by the compression on it, but should be okay post surg. Hearing is anyone's guess. Apparently my balance is pretty good too. (ha, just wasn't walking like a drunken sailor today).
And, the rushing in my head accompanied by the pounding/pressure is not an intolerable symptom according to them. I wonder if I don't explain it well enough. Next time I'm going to tell them it's like someone is sitting on the back of my head and my head actually leans forward with the 'pressure'
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All in all, a pleasant experience. I haven't spoken to my Honey yet and with the possibility of surgery not until March-April I'm still watchin' and waitin'...
