Well.......As predicted Dr. Welling and his team were wonderful!! Thank you all so much!!
Having already looked to all of the wonderful people here for information, what could have been a rollercoaster of emotions and confusion was as simple as seeing your family doctor!! Dr was able to confirm everything I had already found out which was wonderful and put my parents at ease!! And didnt hit us with info or statistics I hadnt already researched!! Which seemed to give my parents alot more trust that I knew what I was talking about
LOL
The only thing we (my parents and I) were not aware of was the actual location of the tumor. We had not been able to pull up the MRI from the disc at home so all we had were the actual notes to read.....I guess even reading all the clinical mumbo jumbo you just dont realize just what this tumor does or how it grows until acutally seeing your own MRI......When you think of inner ear (well at least for us) you think it is just that.....and when you think of an inch or so....it doesnt seem like it would be that big of deal.....The MRI really kinda made us aware of just how serious this is....thank goodness its benign and if ya gotta get one this is what you want.... I guess! The hearing test also confirmed that the hearing in his right ear is completely gone!! Which the doctor said is probably a very good thing for my dad considering the right side of his brain has already compensated so recovery should be fairly "easy" for lack of a better word!! (which I know also was another point I had already learned from you here...
thank you)
The MRI also showed us that my father's tumor was filled with 2 seperate cysts. Dr said only 5% of patients with AN will have cysts involved and although they will do a byopsy of everything the tumor will still 99% be benign the cysts will simply complicate only the removal of the tumor.....but nothing he has never dealt with!! And of course my mom and I both volunteered to donate our "belly fat" !!! I even offered to donate to every patient he had!! LOL And my father being the goofy man he is.....(thats why we love him) asked the Dr and his team if they had any allergies?? They looked confused.....My dad said " I just dont want anyone sneezing or coughing while pokin at my brain!!!" They all were cracking up!!!
I told the dr that I found this forum and he thought that was great....but did warn me of what I read....which I did let him know I already knew what he was gonna say...you have to take into consideration size...complications....age......He just smiled at me!! He then told me he will be speaking at the ANA convention coming up and he was glad I had been researching it!!
We did sign up for a clinical research ....the tumor will be donated and they will be researching how those tumors grow...why they grow the way they do and why the gene (they already know that shuts down and causes these tumors) does what it does. The research is being done at OSU.
All in all....everything went sort of as planned (cysts being a new challenge).....and we are on as scheduled for NOV 4th....election day...YAY!!! LOL
Thanks to everyone here for you support!!! I cant say it enough!!!