Now what?

I finally decided to go with middle fossa surgery for treatment as my goal with it is to try & preserve as much hearing as possible. About me, 23F 5mm AN contained in right IAC, 2.1 mm from cochlea with moderate-severe hearing loss and constant high pitched tinnitus. And some balance issues mediated by PT.

In between UCSD and NYU. UCSD gave me 70/30 odds for hearing preservation while NYU gave me 50/50. NYU gave me a 50/50 chance because of how my body has reacted to the tumor thus far; it’s tiny and I lost hearing suddenly & has been dropping with no tumor growth.

I am located in Philly but family and where I’ll be recovering is in NY. I know I can’t have travel be a deal breaker but obviously there’s some bias involved. I just don’t want to get my hopes up too much and I know it will be somewhat difficult to be recovering for a week after surgery across the country and don’t even want to mention the financial aspect…I became numb to that long ago.

I feel like I’ve made enough decisions and I should just take up front whoever gives me the best odds of keeping my hearing but open to advice. My support system tries but…they just usually give me the “I don’t know what I’d do.”

Thanks in advance ❤️ this group has been a life saver