Here is what will probably be my last blog about this nasty little bugger of a tumor.  Surgery was on March 7th and apparently my sense of humor remained intact despite my high level of anxiety as well as anesthesia... you see just prior to being rolled in for surgery I asked the doctor what music he was going to listen to and when he said "... probably 90's Rock and definitely not Country or Jazz " I crinkled my nose. He asked what I would prefer and my answer was, "Mumford & Sons" although I never did ask his what he actually did listen to.  Upon waking up I was apparently quite concerned with my ability to move my face and  more specifically my tongue because that would be an indication of which nerve he had to cut which would be an indication of whether or not I would be able to continue to interpret; again with sense of humor intact I proceeded to stick my tongue out at my husband and then we had discussion as to who in the family could roll their tongue.  Since I was coming out of anesthesia this conversation was repeated a few times because of course I could not remember the answer!

So to get to the nitty gritty of it all here is the long and the short of it: the tumor was in fact NOT a recurrence of the previous Vagal Schwannoma in fact it wasn't even a Schwannoma (although in the same family of tumors), it was a Paraganglioma on the superior cervical sympathetic trunk.  It was not 2.5cm it was 3cm; I know that doesn't sound like much of a difference but for these type of tumors and in the location of the neck where it was .5cm is a big difference. The result of severing the nerve is a temporary (although it is yet to be seen as to how temporary) paralysis/weakness of the left side of my face, as well as some other minor but permanent damage that should have little if any negative impact on my life.

Because I turned the last tumor into something constructive and overwhelmingly positive, many people have already asked what I am going to do to turn this tumor into something positive. The answer is ...I don't know. Yet.  I need to get back on my feet, back to work, and back behind my camera, or in other words...back to 'normal' before I can even begin to formulate my next move.

I have been writing a book about some of my life experiences and now I need to go back and revise the chapter where I discuss the last tumor to include this newest one and my guess is that in a week or two I should be clearheaded enough to get back to that book and make the revisions/additions.  Truth be told I am pretty excited about the book, the feedback I have gotten so far is that it is "funny" and that those that have read it want to "continue reading to find out what happens." Sure I can see plenty of revisions in my future but since it is a memoir-ish book there are only so many revisions that I can make.

In the meantime, thanks to my sister I have all of the Downton Abby seasons on DVD and will be watching those as I make faces to try to regain the movement in my face.  Oh, and to answer the question of who in my family can roll their tongue...well I can, and so can my son, but my daughter and my husband cannot although both of my in-laws can which is odd since that is a genetic trait which then would indicate that both of my in-laws are non-dominate and did not pass on the dominate trait of tongue rolling to my husband.  BOOM...biology lesson for the day!  You are welcome.

EDIT-despite the pathology report there has been great debate as to what the tumor actually was.  Apparently my insurance doesn't have a separate classification for Schwannoma so they categorized it as paraganglioma.  Go figure!