Dawn, I am delurking to say that I completely understand what you're going through. To make an extremely long story somewhat shorter, at least for now, I have been through about nine months of similar ups and downs, culminating in a diagnosis of not an AN but a probable hemangioma (blood vessel tumor, present since birth). Which are extremely, extremely rare in this area (geniculate/IAC). In a nutshell, it's all the usual AN symptoms but earlier/worse symptoms, including early involvement of facial nerve.
Thus with a 4x6mm tumor I am already considering treatment.
I went through much of the same -- where it seemed like an AN but doctors/radiologists were split because some features weren't quite right for an AN.
I hope sincerely that you will get some clear answers soon. My personal observation about House -- they have been awesome in doing phone consults with me, by the way -- is that they are in a conservative mood right now because they just published a case in December of operating on a supposed AN, they got in there, and found nothing. A few months later on MRI the "tumor" had disappeared. There are rare cases of this in the literature but with very small tumors and increasingly sensitive imaging, there do appear to be some cases where they feel that if the symptoms and diagnosis are brand-new, it's better to let it play out a bit before hurrying too much.
(Obviously this is often not the case -- if there are longstanding symptoms, larger tumor, or whatnot, there is almost no danger of this -- but in theory a tiny spot lighting up on MRI could be a viral inflammatory lesion. So they want to make sure it sticks around awhile, which makes sense!)
As frustrating as it is to wait, and I'm there, too, I do feel that it's better to be sure. It's very hard to get that "gut feeling" about what's right that everyone promises when different docs are telling you very different things!
Best wishes to you and thanks to everyone who posts on here. I have been lurking since last summer, visit almost every day and it's been a great resource and comfort to me since this started.