I thought this condition was rare!

I went to the D.C.-area ANA support group meeting today. Our speaker was a doctor from a hospital in Virginia who runs a CyberKnife machine. He told us about the history of radiosurgery, from the early days of single-session Gamma Knife to the current way of using fractionated therapy with the CyberKnife. There were around 25-30 people in attendance at the meeting, many of whom had surgery throughout the years. Some people had radiation as well. A few people were watch & waiters, and a few others were like me who planned to do something in the near future but were still deciding the what and who.

One of the main things I got out the meeting was that radiation seemed like a viable alternative to surgery, and that if I had radiation first, I might be able to "buy some time" before I needed to have riskier surgery. The surgeons I had spoken with so far didn't offer radiation as a choice to me nor offer a thorough explanation of why. The other thing I learned was that the House Ear Clinic in LA is really on top of things in the AN world and that it would be worth contacting them for more info.

(In the interest of full disclosure, this post was actually written on 1/29/09.)