OK, so I'm late joining this tribe, and don't know if anyone will read this, but I had major complications after my surgery. To start, I ended up with spinal meningitis. NOT fun, as you can imagine. After that, as a result of the antibiotics they had me on, I then developed a hole in the dura patch (the patch they put on the brain after my type of surgery) and had to have surgery again. My summer last year SUCKED.

I too, had a large Acoustic Neuroma removed via microsurgery. I had the emergency surgery back in October 03. 12 Hour surgery for the removal of "big betty", a 5 cm AN.
I had facial palsy when I woke up and I still show signs of it. Luckily no headaches. I have balance and fatigue problems but other than that, very lucky to be alive. :)

I had 24 CSF shunt revisions between 1980 and 1994, when the shunt was removed in favor of a ventriculocisternostomy; and I still have fallout from all of those procedures, in the form of attention deficit disorder. 20 of the surgeries occurred between the spring before starting college and the fall of my senior year, with the delay of my sophomore year for a year due to six in a short period of time. For most of my college career I was doped up on high doses of Dilantin and phenobarbital, with a Depakote kicker for a few months and Parkinson's drugs for another few; but I went drug-free in 1987 after presenting with what looked like many of the "seizures" I had experienced in college but which was diagnosed [properly] as a 'complex migraine.'

Applying to grad school at age 40 and having to re-live a lot of that pain as I write an explanation of why my undergrad grades sucked. At least the research-heavy grad course I took then got all As!