When Gilroy resident Jim Rhodes discovered he had a golf
ball-sized tumor in his brain, he did some research and received
the latest treatment
About three years ago, Jim Rhodes noticed that his right ear felt “full.” It was almost like he had water in it and couldn’t clear it. He saw a doctor, but a cursory check-up didn’t show anything wrong. Only about a year ago, when he started experiencing numbness in his face, did doctors discover the reason behind his full ear. Jim, a Gilroy resident, had a tumor growing out of his ear canal, and it was pushing on his brain.
The golf ball-sized tumor was benign. But the more it mushroomed out, the more pressure it put on the brain, increasing the risk of seizures, an irregular heart beat and, if it had the chance to continue growing, the pressure on the brain stem would lead to death, Jim explained. The condition is called acoustic neuroma, and it affects about one in 15,000 people, doctors told the Rhodes family. When Jim was diagnosed, his doctor told him he had only seen six other cases during his career. Jim told him he was looking at case number seven.
“We went to experts, and I did a lot of research. We talked to the doctors at Stanford, and we went to the House Ear Clinic in L.A.,” said Jim, 45. “There’s a Web site for acoustic neuroma, and through that, I started talking to someone in Georgia who had it. That’s who told me about the Skull Base Institute. My doctors didn’t tell me about it. I found out about it while I was doing my Internet research.”
The Skull Base Institute, also based in Los Angeles, is led by Dr. Hrayr Shahinian. It is one of three facilities in the world that has shunned traditional medicine in favor of new techniques of removing head tumors that are based near the skull and not necessarily embedded within the brain.
“We had gone down to the House Clinic, and I liked the doctor there and I was ready for him to have the procedure done,” said Jim’s wife, Linda. “My attitude was, ‘Now that we know that this thing is, let’s get it taken care of as quickly as possible.’ But Jim wasn’t ready to do that. Two weeks later, we drove back down to L.A. and saw Dr. Shahinian at his office in Cedars-Sinai (Medical Center).”
Standard procedure for removing a tumor such as Jim’s requires a large, C-shaped portion of the skull to be removed, and the brain is lifted slightly for access to the tumor, Shahinian explained.
“The traditional way, it’s a longer surgery, longer hospitalization, and it requires two teams of doctors: an (ear, nose and throat) surgeon, and a neurosurgeon,” he said. “It’s a very invasive procedure. It requires a large part of the skull to be removed. At the Skull Base Institute, we treat the same condition using minimally invasive endoscopy.”
For a tumor like Jim’s, Shahinian makes an incision about 3 to 4 inches in length near the boney area behind the ear. He removes a piece of skull about the size of a dime and inserts long, tubular devices, called endoscopes, through the hole. Then, Shahinian blasts little parts of the tumor with a laser and sucks out the loosened pieces.
“I listened to all the doctors, and I understood that they’ve been using the traditional surgery for my kind of tumor for more than 50 years, but I just wasn’t comfortable with it,” Jim said. “I just didn’t feel good about it. A lot of people don’t mind, and if that works for them, then go for it. I was just much more comfortable with the idea of Dr. Shahinian’s techniques, and so I scheduled my surgery with him.”
Now, a little more than two weeks since his surgery, Jim is home with Linda and their two children, Lauren and Cole. Jim spent just three days in the hospital following the surgery before being sent home to recover.
“When he woke up from the surgery, he wasn’t even talking about how his head felt,” Linda said. “He was talking about how much his leg hurt. The way they had to have him lay on the table and roll him during the surgery left him with bruises up and down his side. That’s what hurt him. Other than that, he only had some minor headaches, and he took Tylenol for those and he was fine.”
Despite having a piece of his skull removed and foreign objects inserted into his head, Jim said the main thing he felt when he woke up was relief.
“It was just gone,” he said. “All of that discomfort in my face and that sensation in my ear was just gone. It was a huge relief.”
Since the surgery, Jim had some minor balance problems, an expected side effect that has mostly cleared up. He is now legally deaf in his right ear, which was also expected. The only telltale signs of his ordeal are the scar behind his ear and the paralysis in the right side of his face.
“The paralysis is really the only thing I’m dealing with now, but that will clear up within the next six months,” said Jim. “Other than that, I’m feeling great.”
When Cole, 9, invites his friends over now, he said he warns them that his dad’s face isn’t working quite right and that he can be hard to understand sometimes.
“I think he’s doing good,” Cole said, smiling. “I was scared when he had his surgery, but I talked to (my sister, Lauren) about it a lot. I cried when I first saw him in the hospital after the surgery, and so did Lauren, but he’s way better now.”
The procedure Jim had costs approximately $50,000 to $60,000. Insurance only partly covers the total, and Jim paid $20,000 out of pocket. Though the surgery Jim is still cutting edge, Shahinian said with time it will be more accepted and, eventually, he hopes it will become the standard procedure.
“I started doing fully-endoscopic procedures in the late ’90s, and I’ve been doing the procedure for acoustic neuroma – what Jim had – since 2000 or 2001,” Shahinian said. “The medical community has called it ‘experimental,’ but more and more facilities are embracing the idea and there’s an international conversation going on about these techniques. It’s an uphill battle before it becomes the golden standard, but I think it will happen. It’s just an evolution, not a revolution.”
