Well, it's surgery for me!!!

[Esther]

I had an MRI on Sept 29 had showed an increase in size in the lesion in my cerebellum. This is the one that had been treated by X-knife (SRS) at Cedars-Sinai in Jan of this year.

We had agreed with my neurosurgeon that as long as there were no symptoms we would be in surveillance mode.

Well on Wed. the 11th in the evening I started to feel a bit off, then on Wed, I was beginning to get nauseated, feel pressure in my head, and by late afternoon my left eye had blurred vision. I called Cedars on Thurs morning, by that evening I was in having a CT scan, they said it was too soon for another MRI, it wouldn't really show them more. The CT showed significant Edema around the lesion, this was causing pressure, and producing the symptoms.

After meeting with my Dr on friday morning the 13th, my two options were to take decadron and watch and wait. Or go for surgery to get the lesion out. Given my symptoms and how quickly they had come on, and the fact that the recommendation was to go ahead with surgery, I have made the decision to go ahead with surgery and it is being scheduled for Wed. Oct 18th at Cedars-Sinai in L.A.

Pretty fast work huh? Oh well...at least I'll get it over with quickly.

Surgery is on the 18th, I'll be in ICU for the first 24 hours, moved into a regular room after that, probably on the 19th. I will likely be in the hospital for 4-5 days.

Anyone who lives in the area is welcome to come visit, hospital tv sucks and I would appreciate the diversion. I will be in Cedars-Sinai in L.A. under the name Esther Butler.

I told Dr. Black that I expected to be able to be physcically fit and functioning by the 10th of Dec., because I had a ski trip planned for Mammoth for that week-end. We have tickets for a Murder Mystery Dinner for the night of Halloween, the 31st, so I fully expect to be functioning by that date. HA!

Well...that's my news for now, kind of sucks, but that's life, and I'll keep plugging away. I feel good about my decision to have surgery, and I'm comfortable that is the appropriate option at this point. Just wish the SRS had done the trick but I got 10 months of great QOL out of it, so that's not bad.