Margaret,
You are so right about taking someone to the appointment. I went to
mine not expecting to hear that I had a brain tumor. I was so shocked
that, with IBS-d, the first thing I had to do was run to the bathroom.
Then I heard the doc all wrong and went home thinking I had a
hemangioma, so I did all my research on that, only to read the
prescription later and find that the MRI was for a meningioma. So I
took my son and two friends to my next appointment. One of the
friends is a nurse so she knew the right questions to ask. I talked
to her the other day and she told me things that I absolutely do not
remember hearing. You can be sure I will ask her to go to all my
appointments.

BTW, I didn't know you could get your tests on CD. Do you mean the
MRIs?

Francesca

--- In meningioma@yahoogroups.com, "Margret Lankford" <mamalank@m...>
wrote:
> Amy
>
> Welcome to our group. We all have similar stories. Everyone has
been told its in our head if we had symptoms. I had none.
>
> They told me mine was small, in a fairly quiet part of my right
frontal brain. I should wait and see. I said this thing is not
supposed to be there I want to do something. Since I have only 30%
kidney function left, I am not a good candidate for craniotomy. I
opted for gamma knife. It was a one day treatment and I had no after
problems. I had it last March and will do the 18 month MRI to check
on it in September.
>
> The thing is, you have to be assertive. Decide what you can live
with and then tell them. They will most probably want you to wait and
see. I for one couldn't live with something growing in my head. I
had already had breast cancer and did not want to wait and see.
>
> Just my two cents worth. Get as educated as you can. Keep notes.
Get your tests on CD if you can as they seem to get lost frequently
and that just causes you more stress. If you can, take someone to
your appointments to listen. Two sets of ears and two brains work
better than one that has just been shocked by the knowledge that it
has a tumor.
>
> Margret
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]