My son was diagnosed w/ a brain tumor when he was 12. It was watched via MRI's every 6 months, until at the age of 17, it was shown to have doubled in size almost, so it was removed at Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN on Januray 31st 2008. He had a grade II astrocytoma removed from his left frontal lobe.

While it was still in his brain it did some damage by just being there. When it grew it did more. he is now going to be 20 in August, and I am happy to say he is doing much better, although he will probably have 'issues', but we have learned to deal w/ them or continue to learn what we can on how to deal w/ them.

The fact that I ended up myself having a brain tumor removed myself in April 2009(meningioma), from my right temporal lobe, behind eye, has helped me 10 fold to understand alot of what he feels and has to deal w/. ( My dad also had a meningioma 'taken care of' by gamma knife prior to us knowing my son had a tumor). 

He is in college full -time now, and is living by himself in an apartment . He works 30 hours a week at our company and is growing up more as he learns new responsibilities.

He is still watched every 6 months for re-growth, so we go through the ups and downs that having to do this all the time and the possibility that it will return  always is in the back of our minds.

I do the best I can for myself to stay healthy so that he has me, his advocate, sticking around long enough to make sure he is sticking around and is taken care of.

I have alot of insight to these types of issues that involve brain related problems: ADD, schooling, homeschooling,frontal lobe injury, personality changes, brain tumors, some meds, migraines, temporal lobe seizure activity....and other things as well, so feel free to ask, inquire or just tell me your story!