Hi,
I am so sorry your husband's AN has come back. I also had a recurrence and "wait-and-watched" for 9 years with it. My first impulse was to do something about it right away, and I investigated all available options then. I did not like what was being offered. All of the available options meant a threat to my facial nerve and possibly more suffering for me and my family. The size of my AN was still very small and I had no symptoms. Perhaps, this was crucial to my decision. It was very emotionally burdensome but I waited for 9 years and last year, after investigating all available options again, I had another surgery. I did not lose my facial nerve but the overall recovery is not short by any means.
There are two things I learned from the experience: 1) technology moves forward immmensely every 5 years and thngs that are possible today were not possible 9 years ago and 2) I postponed mine and my family's suffering, especially important since I had small children at the time. Also, every time you have a treatment, you have less options available and you find that the number of qualified surgeons (micro- and radio-) just dwindle even though new things come up. My neurologist expressed it best: "You should do something about your AN as late as possible becuase this will minimize treatments for it over your lifespan".
Eve