LizAN,
I just came across this thread... if you remember the name Samii, that makes sense. Madjid Samii is a surgeon in Germany (Hanover? IIRC) who's a big, big cheese when it comes to brain surgery. The guy has had textbooks written about him and his techniques. He's been very good at what he does, but he's got to be over 80 at this point. If you need help wading through the articles, let me know. I've got a ton of them on my computer and might have the very article you initially read...
Regarding middle fossa and translab... I'm not sure about middle fossa and HEI in particular, but interestingly Brackmann (one of the older lights at House) seems to be one of the shapers of the translab approach. He's written a bunch of descriptive articles on it dating back to the 1980s that seem very partisan for that technique.
One facial nerve function: honestly, I wouldn't worry about the approach so much, but about the expertise of your surgeons and how vocally demonstrative they are about treating YOU and not just your TUMOR. You are a person who needs to have her face working properly -- they should demonstrate that their goal in surgery is to have your face working as well as possible. If they do that, you are going to get good care at any of the high volume, good reputation centers for AN surgery in this country.
The other thing about the facial nerve is that it's *very* robust compared to the auditory nerve. Even if you get beat up during surgery, it IS possible to get function back... even up to House-Brackmann level I (normal function).
Good luck, feel free to PM me if you want.
Thanks!
Let me know if you find that article. I'm pretty sure it was Samii and I do remember it being a surgeon in Germany, for sure.
Dr. Slattery gave me very good odds - with translab on a tumor the size of mine, only a 3% chance of any long term damage at all to my facial nerve. Sounds good to me. I definitely trust Slattery and Schwartz to take care of me. If I get similar odds on Friday, when I see Vrabec in Houston, then I'll have to seriously consider having the surgery done in Houston. But for now, I'm working on scheduling it at House in July. Just don't know exactly what date yet, but I hope to know on Monday.
Then I have to figure out how to afford the trip.
By the way, that article was what tipped the balance for me, on waiting vs. going ahead with surgery. As I recall, it said that none of the patients in the study with a tumor smaller than 1.5 cm had any facial nerve damage. Granted, it was a small sample. Mine is 1.2 cm and growing rapidly, according to the April MRI. Scared as I am, I think I need to take care of this before it gets bigger, especially since I started having facial twitching last week and even displayed an involuntary sneer at one point.
Liz
