I know the first waiting is the worse.
You had your diagnostic and are left with no moral support and no real knowledge about this tumor.
Please, just consider that this being the very worse time for you has also been lived by all of us mostly because doctors do not understand what a ton of bricks fell on their patient's head. They know it is a small, benign, slow growing tumor. What they do not tell you is that worrying will only make it worse. Not perhaps the tumor, but you body and mental ability to fight it.
I had that tumor in 1990, got a name for it in 97, found immediately a support group, felt worsening of symptoms for 2 years and then it reversed. The symptoms almost disappeared, enough to make me believe I was one of the lucky few who see their AN recede in size (it happened to ONE patient among us and he left the support list never returning. It is called involution, the opposite of evolution.
It would happen more often if we waited more often.
I waited, but my tumor is still growing, now going towards the brain stem. Once there it has all the space to become a fat tumor, so I will get it then. meanwhile, I am living normally, no facial nerve severed, no radiation in my precious head, not much more than vertigo and unbalance, a dead ear side and not thinking very much about the whole thing.
Do not worry. learn a lot. Enjoy life even dizzy, (i try that all the time). Have a little drink and a springy walk with a nice elegant cane.
Good luck.
ant
