My Second Opinion Appointment

Yesterday I asked the people on the T.H.E. Brain Trust BRAINTMR list for a referral to a great NeuroSurgeon and recieved a number of replies, 75% saying to try to get an appt with Dr Peter Black, MD, PHD Chief of NueroSurgery at DanaFarber/Brigham & Womans Hospital and also Children's Hospital, in Boston. My first thought was "yeah right, why and how would I be able to get an appt with someone that is all but famous in NeuroSurgery". So, figuring I had nothing to lose but lots to gain, I called our insurance company to see if I was able to see Dr Black for a 2nd opinion and they said "Yes". Then I called the number I had been given for Dr Black's office. After explaining my problem to the person who answered the phone she was going to schedule me with one of Dr Black's associates toward the end of Aug. I thought that this would be fine since Dr Black would be reviewing the case and any surgery would be after the end of August as far as I knew. She transfered me to pre-registration and after getting that taken care of I was transfered back to Dr Black's office. During the 5 minutes or so that I had been away she had talked to Dr Black and now I was getting an appt in 2 weeks with him personally. He was able to squeeze me in so that he will see me before the Tumor Board Meeting, where a team of Drs from Dana Farber/B&W will review my case. I have no idea whether to just feel really fortunate that he is seeing me (I sure do!) or wonder why my case is so special that he wants to see me personally. After doing a bit more research on Dr Black I have found out that not only is he one of the Top NeuorSurgeons in this country, but also the world! He has developed an intraoperative MRI and does some of his brain surgeries using it so that he can get to even the toughest tumors (and supposedly mine isn't that hard to reach). There are only 16 of these machines in the world at this time. After reading on the Brigham & Woman's website of all the things this man has done I wonder if he ever sleeps! He also is part of the BrainScienceFoundation and they recieved a 5 million dollar grant to study meningiomas...one of the things this could be. Listed on Dr Black's page of the B&W/DF website is his special interests, two of which are skullbased tumors (which this is considered) and meningiomas. Perhaps this is why I've been able to get an appt with him and not the other people who have emailed me telling me they have been trying for over 6 months to get an appt. No matter what happens, between Dr Black and Dr Grove, I feel that I am in very good hands :-)