Hi Tracy:<br />
I can’t say how radiation will effect you.Ive not needed that yet, hopefully the 2 percent they left on my brainstem won’t grow. <br />
All I know is what I’ve gone thru after surgery. I have imbalance due to my loosing hearing from the tumor. Its frustrating, because before surgery I didn’t have disabilities, now I do and its pretty much effected everything I do.<br />
I have no idea what addition will do or how it will effect you. Sorry<br />
Rose

@donna3, These are great questions to ask your care team. As well as the link that @tracylynnedaley72 provided to the ANA, I found this indepth article about radiotherapy as a treatment option for acoustic neuroma. http://www.acoustic-neuroma-brain-tumour.org/english/acoustic-neuroma-radiotherapy.php

Gamma knife surgery worked well for my husband. After 10 years the tumor is actually shrinking and has not grown. It is worth trying rather than the surgery. He did well with it has some balance issues but goes to a balance center in St. Paul mn every few years and that helps. He had great doctors.

My dad had one. Diagnosed 63 years ago in 1955. He lost his hearing in one ear and developed Bell’s Palsy and had to have muscle transfers to lift the right side of his face back up. His mom had an identical tumor and his father died in 1926 from a brain tumor.

Donna

I made a decision I sat out of my life long enough. I was diagnosed in 2014 and stopped working because of my balance issues. I found out what was wrong then. I was going through many health issues at the time. This was the scariest. The one thing the doctors at mayo said I did right was I went every year for a new MRI about the same time. It was able to help them gage how fast the tumor was growing. If it had suddenly changed its speed in growth which it had. Go every 6 months. My neurosurgeon kept saying it wasn’t growing but I was showing up with more symptoms. Doctors can be wrong. If I hadn’t sent all my records to Mayo Clinic for another open appointment. I wouldn’t know today that this was growing and at a faster rate. It was 1.9 centermeters when they took it out. Just a few months before it was 1.4 centimeters. So in 3 months it grew .5 centimeters. It’s amazing how they could change and you can suddenly die from these benign tumors. All I know is I wanted something that had the potential to kill me removed.