surgery date has been set

We finally got the results of the blood test and the indicated that there were no signs of infection and no signs of valley fever and all other blood work was normal....so, now that the lungs are clear and we know it is not valley fever, we can now focus on what is in the brain.

We have decided to go with Dr. Martin as our surgeon. We discussed with him the various treatments:

1. gamma knife (radiation)
2. biopsy first then determine if do gamma knife or crainiotomy
3. crainiotomy

We discussed the various pros/cons of the various treatments with several doctors. The gamma knife is less invasive and has a few less risks, but since we really don't know what kind of tumor it is, it is unclear if this is the right treatment or if it would even be effective. We're assuming we know what kind of tumor it is, but we really don't know for sure without testing it. For example, if it did end up being some sort of inflammitory item or something else strange, this would not be the right treatment. We could biopsy it first to determine exactly what it is then we could decide if gamma knife was right or if we just need to take it out; however, there are risks of bleeding associated with this procedure and Dr. Martin and Dr. Kim both suggested that the risks were very close to the same as if you would take it out and biopsy it at the same time. The third choice is what we're going to go with...remove the tumor and biopsy it at the same time.

A surgery date has been set: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 @ 7:30am

What's next:
----------------
11/28/05 - pre op appointment where he'll give a pint of blood, have another MRI, have xrays and other procedures and we should bring all films, etc.
12/05/05 - give 2nd pint of blood for possible use in surgery
12/12/05 - call between 2-4pm to confirm surgery time
12/13/05 - get admitted @ 5:30am, surgery @ 7:30am
hospital stay about 5 days