Hi all --
I am very grateful to find ANAUSA has such great forums. I've visited the site in the past seeking information to help my mother, little realizing I'd need it myself one day...
Mom was diagnosed in 2005 at age 82 with an 8mm schwannoma, after having had gradual hearing loss and balance issues that she "just got used to." In 2007, at 14mm, she had gamma knife at Medical College of Georgia hospital, and recovered well enough that in 2008, my husband and I encouraged her and my dad to relocate to Olympia WA when we did (we came up here from Monterey). She's had monitoring MRIs every 18 months or so, and the last one, November 2013, showed the little bugger had regrown slightly and was impinging on the balance nerve more than the auditory nerve where it started -- this means she now uses a walker rather than a cane, and complains often about the wonky-head dizziness. Bad data in...
As for me: this past October/November, I found myself experiencing a strange dizzy sensation if I stretched and reached for the sky, and a sensation of someone pressing a thumb to my right eye and cheekbone. I chalked it up to holiday tension until January-ish, when the sound I think of as aircraft-at-30000-feet hiss was superseded by dog-whistle high pitches in my right ear. When my GP couldn't find anything more interesting than ear-wax, I asked for a referral to my Mom's current ENT in Olympia, Dr Marlan. Bless him, I think he was humoring me when he scheduled an MRI, but he called me the day after the MRI and asked me to come see him the very next day.
Longer story short: it's an AN in the right ear, 6mm x 4mm x 3mm -- small by any standard, but there nonetheless. My balance is fine, hearing is excellent, tailing off only in the 6000-8000 hz range where the dog-whistle kicks in, and I'd like to try and keep as much as possible. At 57, I feel a little too young for radiosurgery, worrying if it'll come back (altho' I gather that can happen with any procedure), and see little gain in hanging around waiting to see if the darn thing grows fast or slow. There's a lull at work this spring/summer, before I travel in late August, but we get crazy busy again in October, then it's the holidays, and then it's next year this time... When it could be bigger, more troublesome to whack, and potentially more symptomatic.
My old college flame, now Dr Joseph Arguelles of Plattsburgh, practiced neurosurgery in Olympia for many years (he left a few years before we arrived). After the diagnosis, I emailed asking for his thoughts, and he recommended Dr Johnny Delashaw at Swedish Medical as "the person I'd want doing the surgery if I were in your shoes."
I met Dr Delashaw 4/24/14 and was immediately put at ease. He suggested Middle Fossa approach as the best likelihood of preserving hearing, but also because the AN appears to be perched on top of Spaghetti Junction (sorry, my flip way of referring to that tangle of nerves 7, 8, 9), and he thought that approach would give him a clear view of the work to be done.
Surgery, as yet unscheduled but probably in late May, would be tag-teamed with Dr Douglas Backous. I chatted with Barb, of the Seattle support tribe here on ANA, and she spoke highly of him, too.
After reading the many wonderfully generous threads on this site, it's beginning to sink in just what major surgery I'm letting myself in for, but all things considered, I don't see myself backing out... It ain't gonna get better, eh?
Anyway, many thanks for letting me join in the community. I'll keep folks posted as we progress on the road. Anyone else had experience with Middle Fossa or this team of docs, please chime in!
Laura
