After 12 years of watch-and-wait, since my tumor is pressing on the trigeminal nerve and causing me a level of pain I can't live with anymore, I am choosing all the possible side effects that could result from a retrosigmoid surgery. Thanks to this forum, I know that either Friedman or Schwartz are my best hope for avoiding these side effects. I ended up with Schwartz because House was more efficient at giving me a date--also because I learned that it's Schwartz who actually deals with the tumor itself. Probably best in the world, right? Anyhow, I'm going in with that thought and attitude is important.
It's a weird time, which means I'll be in L.A. over Christmas, but I'll have my whole family here! Husband will be here the whole time, of course. Daughter will fly out on the 23rd. And our son & his family take turns going to L.A. or Chicago for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this year it's our D.I.L's turn to spend Christmas with her family--in Los Angeles!! How perfect is that?
So I am staying positive and now just have to deal with the trigeminal neuralgia for the time remaining (9 days!) I learned that walking helps so am racking up new records on my Fitbit. Just so happens that I have my hair appointment on Tuesday, the day before I leave! That fits right in. No gray roots to deal with for awhile.
So now I spend my time reading positive stories from people who have been through this. I went into "post surgery" and there were lots of depressing sounding stories, so I'm not going to read those. Thank you again for everyone who has helped. I'll post again after surgery, and hopefully I can put it in this, more positive, thread.
