Dr. Friedman's philosophy was that if a patient is going to take on the risk and trauma of brain surgery, he wanted to give the patient the maximum benefit from surgery. And that is maximum reduction of the tumor burden. In other words, if you are going to open up a person's skull, get all the tumor tissue you safely can.
Dr. Friedman is a surgeon who has the expertise, experience and instrumentation to do that. God bless Dr. Allan Friedman and Duke University Medical Center.
Technically a tumor in this location can't be removed 100% because to get all of it would invariably involve taking out some good brain tissue with the bad. This results in potential brain damage which in my case could have led to disabilities such as left-sided paralysis.
As far as the timing of surgery I waited much longer than my doctor was comfortable with. There was some pressure on me to get brain surgery immediately after the MRI discovered my tumor. And it almost happened that way. I came very close to having surgery the next day. But instead we decided to get some second opinions and learn more about brain surgery. We didn't know what we were doing ! Nobody in my family had any experience or had ever given much thought to brain surgery.
Friends and the internet provided a lot of info. Leading us to eventually realize the best place to get brain surgery is at a brain tumor center by a surgeon who does a lot of brain surgeries. Many "neurosurgeons" do mostly spinal surgeries and not that many brain surgeries.
We looked at brain tumor centers and sent copies of my MRIs to them by mail. Duke and Dr. Friedman gave us the best response.
Then we had to convince my HMO to allow me to go to Duke (see the Get Ready section on the home page). All this took time. There was 101 days from the time the MRI discovered my brain tumor until my first surgery.
Not everyone can afford to wait that long. I realize I was extremely fortunate. The MRI caught my tumor at an early stage. (Although from my MRI it could not be determined what stage or grade the tumor was - which is why it was risky to wait to have surgery so long) . Taking that time to explore second opinions and alternatives helped me get into a much better surgery situation than I would have been on an emergency / next-day basis.
My seizures were fairly mild. The drugs (decadron and keppra) I was given help control my symptoms pretty well until it came time for me to go to surgery.
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I have strived to be accurate and truthful in my presentation of my case here.
This website is pretty much finished but I'm always adding to the site. Its become a bit bulky, but I hope you find it useful.
4 years post surgery