This is Linda and I live close to Austin. My husband was diagnosed with a AN after going suddenly losing the hearing in his lt ear. We saw Dr. James Austin, ENT, in Round Rock and liked him. He did a huge battery of tests and sent us to see Dr. Joseph Chang in Houston. We saw Dr. Chang and then Dr. Vollmer in Houston. They recommended Gamma Knife which my husband had two years ago. His tumor is large (4.6-cm) and they could not treat all of it at one time so we waited and had MRIs every six months. The GK did not stop the tumor and now he is facing surgery on November 6, 2006, by Dr. Alp of UT Physicians, a neurosurgeon.
I do not want to scare you but will pass on what everybody has told us. Everybody is different, each case is different. It depends on the size and location of the tumor as to the treatment. But we are all scared in facing these tumors and the waiting is what seems to be the worse part of the whole thing. The Gamma Knife caused my husband to have Bell's palsy on the left side and could not close his eye. But now after 18 months, he got all that back to normal and they tell us the GK probably made the tumor sticky and harder to remove in the part that was treated. A friend of ours daughter-in-law had a tumor removed from her optic area by Dr. Thomas Kingman 4410 Medical Drive, SA. Texas NeuroSciences. Get a second and/or third opinion. Lots of prayer has carried us through.
