Number of hours for surgery

[littlejep]

My tumor was the size of a thumbnail (considered medium sized by the surgeons). I was in surgery from 8AM to 3:30 PM. A surgical nurse kept my family informed every hour and a half. As others have said, it varies from patient to patient, type and extent of the tumor and what nerves may be involved. I knew going in to the surgery that it was going to be long. I came out well, and am doing quite well with very little side-effects, like headaches, numbness around the incision area and affected taste.

Frank

[Boppie]

My 2 cm tumor took about 9 hours.  It was very stuck to the facial nerve .  So that part was long and tedious for the doctor.  The surgical nurse explained it takes about 2 hours just to get the bone opened to the tumor site! 

That's why they call us hard heads . 

Every tumor is different.  The time span will seem like 5 minutes to your brain.  Your family needs to know not to panic.  The doctors will take all the time they need to do the best job. 

[Shrnwldr]

My doctors have told me 3-4 hours.  I will let you know the exact length of time.  My daughter is predicting 6-8 hours.  Any takers? LOL

[ixta]

I was told 6, turned out to be 7. Endoscopic.

You won't even remember closing or opening your eyes though.

[chopper]

Mine was like 6-6 1/2 hours, about what was predicted, endoscopic.

Heh, I remember waking up, being told to wiggle my toes, looking around and wondering what the hell had happened to me.  My presurgery flight was awesome though (whatever it was they shot it me to help "relax" me that is)

[jimmy r]

I have been told 4 to 6 hours at HEI for a translab approach and 8 to 12 hours with Mekena/Barker for retro approach. My first surgery was 4 hours with translab.. My question is are there increased risks for longer surgeries? Is this an advantage of the translab approach? This was my belief 20 years ago when I chose the translab approach, but now I am told not to worry about the longer retro surgery. Both groups think that their approach is the best.