August 8 - Meeting with Neurosurgeon

Requesting a second opinion is standard practice with situations such as ours.  We visited with Dr. O'Niells yesterday.  Dr. O'Niells is a pediatric neurosurgeon who specializes with brain tumors and epilepsy.  It turns out that Dr. O'Niells is already familiar with Erica's case due to the fact that pediatric neurosurgeons specializing in brain tumors are few in numbers in this area and that Dr. Park has already gotten many second opinions from her colleagues.  :-)

This appointment turned out to be a very helpful Q&A time for Erica, Carl and Sue.  Up till this point, we had been very careful with the language that we used with Erica and chose to not include words that may create more anxiety than what she is already experiencing.  Dr. O'Niells approached the situation tremendously well.  In his conversation with Erica in getting to know her, not her file, he noticed that science is something she really enjoys.  He approached her condition in a cool "sciency" manner.  He pulled out two copies of her MRI and said, "Since you like science so much, I think you'll find these pictures really cool!" They went over the pictures of her brain and talked about where her eye sockets and nasel cavities were.  He also discussed the symmetries of the brain and drew emphasis to what was not symmetric.  She noticed right away the small white spot on the left side of the brain that did not also appear on the right side of her brain.  Through their discussion he described the spot as being the cause for her seizures.  She already had some background knowledge about a clump of cells and nerves that were irritating her brain, but Dr. O'Niells delicately described other names for it, including tumor.  He explained clearly that this is NOT the kind of tumor she may be familiar with and she does NOT have cancer.  You could see her relief.

The appointment answered many questions for us all and we did learn a great deal more about what we are dealing with and what to expect.  In summary:
- The tumor is about 1cm in diameter, fairly small.
- It is located on the left side in the temporal lobe close to the left hippacampus.
- It is possible that she was born with this abnormality and it just now has decided to cause symptoms.
- Because of the location and size of the tumor, she is a perfect surgical candidate.
- There are less invasive procedures that may be an option like laser surgery.
- If surgery is course of action, she will most likely be cured! No more epilepsy!
- Once surgery planning has begun, timeline would be 2-3 months for surgery to happen.

It was clear that this appointment helped us all accept and understand more in depth, but more than anything remove some of our worst fears.  In the end, Erica will be a happy and healthy girl, or at least as happy as a teenage girl can be. :-)