April 8, 2025 - By Kathryn Sill

In the summer of 2023, Erin Schneider went for her routine dental cleaning. After months of asking doctors why her tongue veered uncontrollably to the left when she stuck it out, her dentist offered to do some research. He called her back the next day and recommended she see a neurologist.

Up to this point, Schneider had led a healthy lifestyle, staying active with yoga, Pilates, and outdoor running. She balanced a busy life in Southern California, making time for family, supporting her daughter Audrey’s ballet, and excelling in her public relations career. Her professional experience included working for Toyota’s and Lexus’ marketing agencies and at Warner Bros. Previously, Schneider had built a strong reputation in Chicago, where she played a key role in the opening of Millennium Park in 2004, organizing exclusive behind-the-scenes media tours of the park during its construction and offering a rare early look at the now-iconic monuments, including “The Bean” sculpture.

Once she finally got in to see a neurologist in Newport Beach, he said he was 99% sure there was nothing structural causing her tongue deviation, but he’d order an MRI “just in case.” A few days after the MRI, she returned to his office, where he shared the life-changing words, “you have a mass at the base of your skull.”

“A million thoughts raced through my mind,” Schneider said. “I never expected to be diagnosed with a brain tumor.”

The neurologist informed Schneider that the area was difficult to operate on and would require a neurosurgeon specialized in that type of surgery. In a daze, Schneider left her appointment and called her husband, Doug, and her parents.

“I could foresee the surgeries and the hospitals that lie ahead, but I had no idea at the time just how difficult the journey would be,” Schneider said.

When she picked up her radiology report, she found out her tumor was likely to be a rare bone tumor known as a chordoma, which grows slowly in the spine or base of the skull.

“I did extensive research on chordomas and learned that my best odds of having a long, healthy life were to first, undergo surgery with a total tumor resection, and second, to prevent recurrence with radiation,” Schneider said.

She began consulting family and friends in medicine for advice and calling hospitals in the area with expertise in minimally invasive endoscopic endonasal surgery. This was the surgery Schneider would undergo, which would allow the surgeon to go through her nose to operate at the base of her brain.

The location of her tumor had to be handled with the utmost care, since it was wrapped around critical vasculature and nerves and dangerously close to her brain stem. A local neurosurgeon even told her he wouldn’t be able to remove the whole tumor, and he doubted she could find anyone who could. Schneider was determined to find a solution and kept researching until she found a neurosurgeon she trusted to perform this surgery.

“When I spoke to my father, a retired general surgeon, he recommended I go to someone who had done this surgery hundreds of times, and I’m so grateful I came across Dr. Juan Carlos Fernandez-Miranda at Stanford,” Schneider said.

Juan Carlos Fernandez-Miranda, MD, FACS, professor of neurosurgery, has performed over 4,000 cranial operations including over 2,000 endoscopic endonasal operations for pituitary tumors and other skull base lesions.

“I emailed Dr. Fernandez-Miranda on a Sunday night expecting no response,” Schneider said. “I had already contacted countless neurosurgeons who took days to get back to me or didn’t respond at all, but within 40 minutes he personally emailed me back, and that gave me hope that this time things would be different.”

I was nervous, but I felt completely at peace that I had chosen the right team for this incredibly complicated surgery.

Stanford scheduled a virtual visit for Schneider and her husband, and after speaking with Dr. Fernandez-Miranda, they knew she was in the right hands. Dr. Fernandez-Miranda was definitive on the next steps, explaining that the scans showed the five-centimeter tumor had eroded part of her spine and that after he removed the tumor, she would need a fusion to ensure her brain stem and spinal cord were fully protected. Schneider’s spinal erosion had developed into craniocervical instability, a condition where the ligaments in the head and neck experience excessive movement.

Fernandez-Miranda said her surgery would be a two-day process, where he would do a tumor resection on the first day, followed by one of his colleagues performing an occipital spinal fusion on the second.

In October 2023, Schneider and her husband traveled to Stanford for her tumor removal, a surgery that would take over 11 hours to complete.

“I was nervous, but I felt completely at peace that I had chosen the right team for this incredibly complicated surgery,” Schneider said. “It was a moment of total surrender. My life was literally in their hands. I had done my part. Now it was their turn.”

Following surgery, Schneider underwent an intraoperative MRI confirming that her tumor was fully removed. However, as the medical team anticipated, she also experienced some temporary complications.

Undergoing two surgeries back-to-back caused Schneider’s body to form a blood clot in her leg that traveled into her lungs causing a pulmonary embolism and a second large clot that blocked her airway. Suddenly, she needed an emergency bedside trach, and her ICU stay extended from five nights to three weeks, so that they could closely monitor her.

“I knew there was a chance I could experience complications from surgery, and I was grateful that when I did, I was surrounded by some of the best medical professionals in the country,” Schneider said.

She recovered at an inpatient rehab center for 10 days after her hospital stay, temporarily wearing a cervical collar as support during her recovery.

The rhythm of normalcy feels good. The mundane is a gift. I'm grateful for even my worst days. It means I'm still alive.

“The team at Stanford was extremely qualified,” Schneider said “Dr. Fernandez-Miranda has excellent bedside manner, showing me extreme compassion in the process, even continuing to review my case now with virtual visits. At my last visit I told him he was my hero, only to hear him say back that I was his. Choosing to come to Stanford was the right decision.”

More than a year after surgery, Schneider’s quality of life has drastically improved. She is back to driving, working, and caring for her family. She attended physical therapy and does acupuncture to address the remaining stiffness from the spinal fusion. She also sees local doctors in Southern California that Fernandez-Miranda referred her to for radiation and otolaryngology (ENT) follow-ups, as he continues to monitor her scans.

Now life has a new meaning for Schneider, who following her surgery on her CaringBridge page penned the words, “driving home after dropping Audrey off at school, I couldn't be mad for long at her being sluggish to get out the door this morning. I couldn't be too annoyed by the usual traffic on the freeways. The rhythm of normalcy feels good. The mundane is a gift. I'm grateful for even my worst days. It means I'm still alive.”