I was answering phones taking pizza orders and I was realizing I was having a little
trouble hearing the person on the phone and I switched the phone to the other ear temporarily
and I could hear the person fine and that's when I realized it's not the landline it's me.
I went in to see my regular general practitioner doctor just for a general checkup. She asked what
was wrong and if anything was bothering me. I mentioned the hearing thing not thinking it was a
big deal at all. She said okay well it's a little bit strange to have hearing problems at your age.
There's a chance it could be a small benign tumor maybe just a millimeter or two but tell you what,
we'll get you set up for an MRI just to double check, just to be thorough just to make sure...
I went in and got the MRI and they said hey Dave so we got the results back
um you do have a tumor but it's not a millimeter or two, it's three centimeters. Unfortunately for
David this was a large tumor at 3.4 centimeters which is a tumor that's large enough to put
pressure on the brain stem and brain. These tumors can become life-threatening. I think as a rule of
thumb for a large tumor like this we would like to say that we'll remove as much tumor as possible
so as not to expose the face nerve to a greater than five percent risk of of injury uh and that's
where the art of the surgery really comes in because as you might imagine tumors don't come
with labels during the surgery saying cut here for five percent risk cut here for 10 percent risk.
When we get to this critical portion of the surgery where we're really deciding whether
we can remove the whole tumor we consult with each other in the operating room during the procedure
uh to decide whether or not we're going to pursue the last bit of tumor or leave
a small amount along the facial nerve. We often talk in medicine about the art of medicine versus
the science of medicine and this is exactly what we're talking about. This is where we need to be
a craftsman first and try and make a judgment that can be very very hard to do alone. So
the team-based approach for skull-based surgery which was invented at house maybe 60
or so odd more years ago lives on today and remains the cornerstone of our success
in advancing uh what you could very honestly say is the art of surgery in addition to the science.
Surgery went very well in his case think uh thank goodness and we were able to remove the entire
tumor without injuring the facial nerve. Well I was definitely glad the research had been done.
I mean luckily I wasn't the first person to have to undergo this. I mean if the research hadn't
been done I might still be sitting here with a big gigantic sucker of a tumor in my head.
So after the surgery my recovery was approximately eight weeks or so and that's exactly what the
doctor said it would be. After about eight weeks I was back on my feet and ready to get back to work.
What I'm looking forward to most is actually uh I have been looking forward to for a while
and just this morning for the first time since getting out of surgery I rode my motorcycle
and I took that here I've been working on it for a while and of course I couldn't ride for a while
at first because of you know I did have getting out of surgery I did have some some balance and
coordination issues so I'm back on my harley and i was looking forward to that for a while.
I inherited it from my dad and he passed away several years ago. I think about
him whenever I ride and uh so I was glad in a way that he wasn't you know around to see
me have to go through all this because I know how tough that can be on a parent.
But I'm glad this morning I rode my harley here and I thought about my dad along the way here.