Post craniotomy

Three months ago I had a 6”+ frontal lobe atypical meningioma removed via craniotomy. Surgery was successful, 100% of visible tumor was removed. I too had a consult with the radiation oncologist. His opinion was basically no opinion; I could have the radiation treatment or not. I have read on this site and other sites of the potential side effects. Because the tumor was in the frontal lobe, there is risk of radiation caused long term permanent damage including cognitive decline, memory loss, and behavioral changes. Your post is encouraging me to take a wait and see approach. If I wait and monitor with periodic MRI and the tumor comes back, it will get treated then hopefully with gamma knife. Based on my age (67) this seems logical. It could take years for the tumor to regrow, in which case I’ll be approaching natural life span anyway. Does this make sense? I’m getting a second opinion from another radiation oncologist, and the next MRI is in July.

I would have done whatever they recommended although I was relieved not to face radiation treatment. My son who authorized the surgery when I lay unconscious from the bleeding meningioma had told me that they told him I had only a 1 in 10 chance of a meaningful life after the surgery. I figured that group had helped me beat the odds already and I would not second guess them. On what basis no radiation was decided, I don’t know.

I would have leaned more toward radiation treatment had the radiation oncologist recommended it. We’ll see what Dr. Second Opinion has to say. Right now I just want to enjoy being back to normal. I wasn’t unconscious but the pressure from the tumor had me semiconscious and unable to function.

Everyone’s story is slightly different. I was totally functional, taking care of my husband with Alzheimer’s and working a full-time job from home until the moment I knew to call emergency and say, “I think I’m having a stroke.” I woke up 2 days later in the neuro ICU, very fuzzy. I asked my neurologist how long it would take me to recover and he said 18 months. And he was right.

I’m almost three months post-frontal lobe craniotomy. The top of my head from the incision line to the crown is completely numb. The surgeon says the feeling will come back but it may take a while. I get some phantom itching feelings from the numb area which turn out to be coming from the incision, which is very itchy.

It's so WEIRD!!! I get little throbbing pains in the area that is the most numb

This is sort of a related: while giving Novocain for a filling repair, the dentist hit the nerve just right (or wrong), which caused half of my tongue to lose feeling. During the nerve recovery I would get phantom burning pains and shooting pins and needles sensations.