thanks all for the kind words and support. just a bit nervous but i guess that is normal. my neurosurgeon said i could put it off but i would need to get mris evey 1-2mos and if/when it changes i would be surgery within a coule of days of the mri, so i may as well schedule all i need to and go and get it out of me. although he is not 100% sure if the mass or the discs are causing my problems, he said that there is a good chance that the current level of pain medications i am on could be masking other problems the mass is casuing, especially since i have been on them continually for at least 3-4yrs. as i reflect there are weird symptoms that i have had off and on, but it was always attributed to other ailments, so who knows. he definately doesn't want it in there and without alarming me kind of made up my mind for me by 90%.
he took all of my mris to the "neurosurgeon review board" and the after that he has narrowed it down to mostl likely 2 types of tumors, but he said, until he gets in there he won't know 100%, regardless of what type of imaging is done. i feel very comfortable with him and i verified that he would be doing 100% of the surgery, since the hospital he is the head of neurosurgey at has a pretty extensive residency program. he said most definately, we would just do it at a different hospital that is equally set up hardware wise, closer to my condo and he would bring his team - himself, his nurse and his anethesiologist (they need to make concessions due to the amount of meds i have been on for such a long time). he would be doing 100% of the surgery. i have been a patient at this other hospital and to be honest, you couldn't ask for a nicer set of people on the neurological floor.
he said more than likely my problem area would be the pain associated with the recover (going through the muscle and actually taking part of the vertabrae off, but in theory no hardware will be installed) because of my other ailments and the long term narcotics use (prescribed of course). he told me he would take care of it and move me up in to stronger pain medications (guessing either morphine or demerol) for 2-3wks post surgery so i should fair decently, but not as good as a person who is virgin to the heavier narcotics.
i am in the process of creating my living will - kind of weird to think so much about your own mortality, but i would rather have it all done in writing than to have my wife having to make decisisions if something were to go bad under the stress she would be under. i don't want to do that to her, so i will most definately take care of that portion.
i should be in the hospital 4-6days and at the least very limited in mobility but still able to move and walk. within 4-6wks post i should doing pretty well. i am going to run some cat5 to the bedroom i will be in for some time since i will be in bed quite a bit. plus it will give me something to do other than watch movies, which would drive me nuts after a while.
i know the odds are most definately in my favor, and i know that i am much more likely to get f*cked up driving on a saturday night, but there is that worry for me that comes with actually scheduling a surgery....
hopefully i will have enough time to go donate my own blood in case extra is needed, but if not no biggie. not sure how long it takes the body to create x amount of blood and i don't want to go in on the weaker side.
will keep this post updated