No first-hand experience, but my best friend had a benign tumour removed from his brain when he was about 18.
I went and saw him once he was awake and up to visitors, and with one eye completely swollen shut (the tumour was at the front and pushing on his eye area), and pretty much just fresh out of brain surgery, the bastard whipped my ass at canasta.
He’s never let me live it down. 
Anyway, best of luck to you, to come through with flying colours!
I do hope everything goes well.
The father of a friend was diagnosed with malignant brain tumors when we were finishing HS. It meant the end of college for her, years of holding the house and the family together… the doctors were amazed when their patient’s survival kept breaking records. He had a total of twelve brain surgeries (which shouldn’t be your case, his initial diagnosis was “if we don’t operate he’ll die in a month, if we do operate he may get a year”). He was given early retirement because that’s the general policy in Spain after someone has been sick for two years or longer, but other than general tiredness which got less bad as time went by, he was in good health once he finished all the treatments. He died three years ago, in his 70s, some 15 years after the last surgery.
I am sorry to hear your news. Sending get-well thoughts your way!
Scary stuff, caveman. Good luck and good health to you!
I’ve known three different people with brain tumors, all three much nastier kinds than yours.
All three came through surgery (one of them multiple times) with no problems and no noticeable side-effects from the surgery.
Since the surgery entails head-shaving, the spousal unit wanted to do that in advance, then label one side “Open Here” and “This Side Up”, with the other side “OPEN OTHER SIDE” and “WRONG SIDE UP”. Should make the OR staff giggle, if nothing else. Just a thought… 
You and your wife are in my thoughts and prayers.
i hope things go well for you.
a bit of a heads up. ask the doctors about after care and have things set up as soon as you can.
it is not easy trying to get p.t. or home nurses around the end of the year. try to get it lined up ahead of time.
Thanks for all the well-wishes, y’all. I will be certain to keep this updated as thing progress.
We didn’t discuss specific methods, just the general option of radiation. I read about Gamma Knife, and it sounds really cool, but I don’t think I could put up with my (fellow) comic book nerd father making Hulk jokes all the time.
If I can use my brain to make disgusting noises, I will be ever so happy, although I know my wife won’t.
I’ve talked with my employer, and I’m getting lots of support from that end; besides, I love doing what I do, even if I can’t explain it in 5 minutes, or to my grandparents.
I’ll certainly let you know; Vielen Dank!
This is kinda where my family is a the moment, scared but hopeful. They live rather close, and have offered plenty of help. I hope providing help will be more of a palliative for mom’s fear than my necessity.
When I was diagnosed, the doctors asked me and my wife if I seemed forgetful or absent-minded lately; unfortunately, I’ve been the Absent Minded Professor (minus the PhD) since childhood, so it’s hard to say.
This is how I’m hoping it goes, but with tree-trimming instead of canasta.
Thanks, Nava; I’m glad the only “deadline” I’m facing in terms of treatment is “the sooner, the better.”
So, do I count as #4? Folks are going to stop hanging around you if this keeps up :). As for the head-shaving, seeing as my head is already shaved, I’ve been a little concerned about the scar (vanity, vanity…), and have thought about getting an interesting tattoo to make the best of it. Alas, although my city is free-wheeling, my job is corporate, so that won’t fly. I’ll just have to come up with an outrageous story to tell about it instead.
I’ll be sure to ask many, many questions in this vein. And if I don’t, I know m’lady will.
Geez, Caveman, you needed that like a hole in the head…
…What?
May all your nurses be cute, may you be well enough to appreciate them, and may your stay be short enough that you will miss them when you leave.
Best wishes & prayers.
Yikes! Best wishes for a safe surgery & speedy recovery. What does the recovery entail anyway? Hopefully it means lots of time on the Dope for you. (Of course, maybe they won’t allow you to think. Just kidding.)
Best of luck. My mother also had a benign tumor and went with the Gamma knife option. It was a complete success.
Number 4 or 5, I can’t remember if I’ve talked to someone else online. (It’s been about 20 years since the first one.)
Yeah, it’s kinda freaky. Makes ya just a bit paranoid.
One of the best moments the spouse had was while the staples were still in and a bunch of goth punkie-boppers thought they were the coolest new rad body-mod ever.
Best wishes and good luck.
{{{{caveman}}}}
I’m sending positive thoughts.
Ditto. I wish you good luck and a quick recovery. Don’t worry; from what I’ve learned, parietal lobe surgery is almost as easy as frontal lobe! 
General pre-surgery advice: always talk personally to the anesthesiologist.
Also, if you want a fun read, (and also to freak yourself out a bit), get this book. I had to get it after I read the first page. I was not disappointed.
Another Doper sending good thoughts and wishes your way. Can’t wait to read your first post-op post!
Caveman, I had skull surgery a little over 20 years ago (at 35). I don’t know if my experience will still be valid, since we’ve come a long way in those 20 years, but I’ll tell you what I experienced anyway.
They went in to “fenestrate” (I love that word) a sub-arachnoid cyst in the posteria fossa area. I say “skull surgery” because the cyst was between my brain and my skull (right in the back of my head, a little above where my neck joins my head). Oh, and “fenestrate” means “to cut a hole in”. They actually removed a half-dollar size piece of my skull, which is still missing today. (Now, where did I put that??? )
The surgeon told me that I’d be “better” after a month, but I didn’t really feel I was back to 100% until about 9 months later. Things may be better now with their better anesthesia and surgical techniques. But don’t rag on yourself if your recovery takes longer than you thought.
Expect weird things to happen while you are recovering. I remember getting different odd symptoms while recovering in the hospital and asking the doctor about them. After the 2nd or 3rd time he answered, “that should be gone in a couple of days”, I finally asked him, “have you ever heard of someone having <symptom x> after this surgery?” And he answered, “No, but most things go away in a couple of days.”
Expect bad days and good days when you’re recovering. Recovery isn’t a nice gradual slope from “feeling bad” to “feeling good”. I had days where I felt almost normal followed by days I was miserable.
This might just be my preference, but: decline any drugs that aren’t absolutely necessary. ALL drugs have side effects. The fewer you put in your body, the fewer problems you’ll have recovering.
J.
Yikes! I’ve never had to deal with anything like that (yet), but that sounds frightening. I’m sure you’ll be fine, though. Here’s hoping for an uneventful procedure and a speedy recovery! Be sure to let us know how it went.
Good luck, caveman.
Crazy fact: whenever I think about anatomy, it’s rarely the human body in my mental image, but rather the sad carcass of “Smelly Cat,” the unfortunate and odoriferous ex-cat that served as subject for dissection in my AP Bio 2 class lo, those dozen years ago. His bowels were outsized compared to the other specimens, and seriously rank, even by dead cat standards. Not that I remember all of it, but enough that my neurosurgeon got the hint that he can use the technical terms with me.
Another Doper sending positive vibes your direction!
Couldn’t you just go in the workshop and do it yourself via trepanation.
Could be fun!