I Am Joan's Tumor

Hi! I'm an acoustic neuroma, a benign (non-cancerous) tumor of the 8th cranial, or acoustic, nerve. I'm the one causing the problems in Joan's head.

By December, I was about 1.5 centimeters long, which is considered "small to moderate" (sometimes tumors like me are the size of a golf ball by the time they find me). They found me after Joan had a less-than-perfect hearing test and follow-up MRI.

I am extremely slow growing, I don't spread or metastasize. Once they get me outta there, the chances that I'll come back are miniscule.

All of the doctors are unanimous in their diagnosis and extremely optimistic in their prognosis for Joan. I, on the other hand, will end up in a Petri dish in some research lab.

Joan's surgical scar will be relatively small, behind the right ear, and hair will grow right over it. But just to be certain, her pricey Meatpacking-district haircutter will be scrubbing in to ensure that the surgeons pay close attention to her future hairstyling needs.

OK, I sound like a walk in the park so far, but I do have risks and downsides. Here are the problems I'm causing for Joan:

She has to have 4-6 hours of intracranial microsurgery, under general anesthesia. She's young and healthy, so the risks of surgical/anesthesia complications are minimal, but by all accounts she'll have an unpleasant recovery period after the surgery (4-5 days in the hospital, 2-3 months out of work).

She has less than a 50-50 chance of retaining any hearing in her right ear (she's pretty bummed about this one).

I'm very close to the nerve that controls facial muscles. There is a chance that if the surgeons have to disturb the facial nerve to remove me, Joan could have some temporary facial paralysis (the good news: the docs put the chance of this happening at less than 1%).

The acoustic nerve is also the one that controls balance, so after I'm outta there, Joan's equilibrium will be out of whack for some time until her brain re-adjusts and the "other side" takes over. This is one of the main reasons why her recovery period will be so long.

Finally, please rest assured that despite the seriousness of the situation, the brain surgery puns at Chez Voltz are flying hot and heavy ("I'm gonna give those doctors a piece of my mind", "I need this like I need a hole in the head", "I need to get something off my mind", etc.)....