Long day in Baltimore

Phil and I went up to Hopkins again today. Our first appointment was with Dr. T, the neurosurgeon. He had obviously done a lot of these surgeries as he had his whole conversation perfected. He briefly went through the treatment options and then discussed the retrosigmoid surgical procedure and its risks; Dr. T was able to give percentages specific to my case for my risk of hearing loss, facial paralysis, and headaches. Overall, Dr. T felt that I should make a pretty full recovery, and we felt good about Dr. T's knowledge and experience.

Afterward, I went to the audiology department to have an audiogram performed. I would get the results at my appointment later that day with Dr. C. Then I took part in a study that Dr. C was heading and went out to lunch with Phil and a friend from college. I was also able to speak with Dr. T's secretary to schedule the surgery for Feb. 9.

At the meeting with Dr. C, we went over some questions I had and the audiogram. It showed that I have a 30-40% loss of hearing in my left ear with 80% word recognition. This means that I can both hear reasonably well and understand speech very well. We all agreed that it would be in my best interest to try to save some of this hearing. Even if I end up with only a little hearing left, it will help with directionality and knowing where sound comes from. I signed the surgical consent forms, and then the appointment was done.

We went home feeling very good about things and looking forward to getting the surgery over with.

(In the interest of full disclosure, this post was actually written on 2/1/09.)

Is the glass half full or half empty?

I got the radiologist's report for the MRI from last week.

"Again noted is an enhancing mass lesion in the left cerebellopontine angle. The majority of this lesion is in the cerebellopontine angle, but with a component protruding into the internal auditory canal. The extracanalicular portion of the mass has increased in all three dimensions when compared with the previous study measuring 1.4 AP x 1.3 RL x 1.6 cm SI (previously 1.3 AP x 0.9 RL x 1.3 cm SI)."

In layman's terms: I still have a tumor. It's grown since the last scan taken four months earlier.

As nice as it would have been for it to not have grown, I was also glad to see it grow because it confirmed that I should go ahead and have surgery now instead of waiting longer.

(In the interest of full disclosure, this post was actually written on 1/30/09.)

Brain MRI, Take 2

I had my second brain MRI today. It was pretty much the same as the first one except I had a different tech. Also, during the scan, I was thinking about whether or not my tumor grew instead of wondering why I was wasting my time having it done.

(In the interest of full disclosure, this post was actually written on 1/30/09.)