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Grateful Patient Stories

Olfactory Groove Meningioma

I told Dr. Barkhoudarian this week, after my 9 month MRI that we had just remodeled our entire home and decided that brain surgery was easier!

-Susan B., Clearwater, FL

Susan B

My diagnosis came out of the blue. One day I was fine, the next I had a brain tumor. I didn’t know much about different types of brain tumors, only that my father had died from one when I was 5 years old so I was stunned. Fortunately mine was a different “species” and benign.

We saw a local neurosurgeon and also had opinions from two other facilities. When I emailed Pacific Brain Tumor Center I was amazed that Dr. Barkhoudarian personally called me and discussed what I had learned so far and what information he needed to give me an opinion.

I was able to get my MRI uploaded to him the next day and when he called me back he was so reassuring and confident that this would not be as awful and as scary as the physician I had seen locally told me it would be.

I wanted to have surgery in a place where this was “every day” by a physician who did this “every day”. Dr. Kelly and Dr. Barkhoudarian fit my criteria all the way around and I never looked back.

The care and professionalism that my husband and I experienced from the entire team was amazing. My follow up care has been by MRI uploads and email. No need to fly back and forth to California.

Susan B

I told Dr. Barkhoudarian this week, after my 9 month MRI that we had just remodeled our entire home and decided that brain surgery was easier!

I was initially told that I would lose my ability to smell. The testing of my ability to detect different scents before surgery was so thorough and the doctors did everything possible to preserve my ability to smell. I’m so happy to report that they were successful in those efforts and every time I smell the sea or night blooming jasmine I think of what could have been and am so grateful.