Haven't posted here in a while, but I've been lurking some. This week I had my 1 year MRI and follow up visit with Dr. Chang here in Houston. In my case, during my AN surgery he left what he called a very small capsule of the tumor surrounding my facial nerve so as not to disturb it too much. I'm very happy to report he says there has been no re-growth and all in there looks good. He checked my balance(which he called pretty good) and said I still have very slight facial weakness, but not really that much to speak of. I showed him this new trick that I have that when I press my lips together or smile, my AN side eyelid goes down...he said that this is a little bit of synkinesis whereby the nerve is rewiring in the wrong place....it's not really a big issue and not that noticeable except by me. I also still have a little nose twitching going on, but couldn't get it to do that while in his office.
As I said before, I feel very fortunate for having the size of tumor I had with relatively few minor issues to deal with beyond the 2 month post op period. Just within the last few weeks, I've done a 100 mile bike ride(in the 100 degree weather here in SE Texas); a 10K fun run(I know that's an oxymoron to some people); vacation to Pennsylvania, including a day at Hershey Park(I did all 11 roller coasters with my kids), then sat thru a Nascar race at Pocono, then toured all the historical sites of Philadelphia and saw a Phillies game.....so I'd say I'm doing fairly well for an old dude that had brain surgery a year ago.
I'm going to continue to do some road biking for the warm months, and then will try to start running some in the fall to start preparing for the Houston marathon next January.
Would have loved to have met some of you forumites at the Chicago affair, but hopefully I can make it to Cincy in a couple of years.
Thanks again for all the support
Patrick
