Diagnosed with possible meningioma

  Yesterday I was told I have an MRI found a 3 cm "uniformly inhancing mass adjacent to the dura
  in the left anterior, lateral frontal lobe", that is extra-axial and "demonstrates a dural
  tail", highly consistent with meningioma.  I am a 38 year old overweight female presently
  taking Prozac, Tylenol and Aleve. I have been taking Prozac for nearly 8 years, 80 mg. daily.
  (It has been a life saver for me and my family.) The Tylenol and Aleve are taken almost daily for
  headaches and pain associated with a metal plate from a previous broken leg.
  I first went to see my optometrist because I was having trouble focusing even with glasses, she notices
  some papilledema and was referred to a opthamologist who said I was just having side effects from rfrequent
  migraines which I have had since my early 20's. The opthamologist said to return in 6 months to see the
  optometrist which I did last month and was sent to the University of Louisville eye clinic were they did
  an MRI and had me see the neurology clinic docs yesterday. When I saw the optometrist she told me it was
  probably pseudotumor cerebri and that it was easily treatable. So as a nursing student I did research
  (including mehelp - which turned out to be a GREAT source of info) and was sure that since my sister has
  pseudotumor, I did too and that a spinal tap and meds would be used to treat. However this was not the
  Needless to say that when the docs told me that there was a definite tumor I was shocked. They did their
  best to answer any questions I had, however, I can't remember everything they said. (Except to try to keep
  my blood pressure down, yeah right!) Now there are many question I have and hope you can answer some of them
  for me. If the tumor is a slow growing type, how long could I have had it and how could an opthamologist
  misdiagnose this? Does it have anything to do with taking Prozac for so long at such a high dose? What are
  reasonable treatment options? Given the location of the tumor can this explain some of the problems I
  have had making decisions in the last several months, including one that got me fired from my job. What
  are the chances of this coming back if it is surgically removed and the neuro doc recomends? How long can
  I safely wait to have the surgery? What would be the side effects of the surgery? Are there alternatives
  to conventional surgery? What else can you tell me about this and what to expect?
  Thank you for your time.
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I will try to answer as many of your questions as possible, not all are
easy to give definitive answers to at this stage.
A meningioma is a very slow growing tumor, it may have been present for
several years, there is no documented association with PRozac therapy.
These tumors cannot be diagnosed without a scan, the optometrist suggested
pseudotumor diagnosis on the basis of the papilledema, the two diagnoses
cannot be separated without a scan.
The best treatment is conventional surgery, this is a superficially
located tumor and can be easily removed without any long term serious side
effects, you could probably wait months and follow this with repeated scans
before taking the plunge with surgery.
The tumor sounds quite small to have caused these symptoms, it is possible
that you could have both pseudotumor and a meningioma since meningiomas this size
usually cause no symptoms.If there is a brain tumor to have this is the one
as it is benign and easily treatable with relatively straightforward
surgery.The surgeon should be able to advise you regarding recurrence after the
tumor has been excised, full excision should be easily accomplished giving a
minimal chance of recurrance.