Of course I don't mind you asking. The first time around I had a large tumor (3.5cm) that was embedded pretty deeply not only in my facial nerve, but also in my brainstem. Upon removing the tumor from my brainstem and starting in on the facial nerve portion, i had already been in surgery for 8 hours and they didn't like the response they were getting from my facial nerve, so they decided that if they kept going, there would be a good chance of facial paralysis, but if they came back at a later date, the odds of facial paralysis would be signifigantly reduced. I think they said the odds of pralysis dropped from like 25% to 5%, so it seemed like the right thing to do.
Now about 2 months post op from my 2nd surgery, my face is still weak, but they expect most of it to come back within the next two or three months. It's already much better than when I came out of surgery.
Back to your question, I was in the hospital for a month the first time around because after they removed the tumor from my brainstem, my brain swelled quite badly and compressed my brainstem. I was unconscious for two and a half weeks after surgery, had a shunt inserted to help with the swelling, spent 3 weeks in ICU and then hit the rehab floor for about 10 days. You can compare my syptoms to those of a stroke victim. The whole left side of my body was gone. I couldn't walk, stand, or do much of anything.
I wrote a full account of my "story" which I have posted in one of my blogs. If you're interested you can find my blog at
www.myspace.com/msuscottie
