For the most part, Maggie Flanders looks, acts, and sounds like a typical 19 year old.

"My iPod is like my twin now," Maggie says, as she plays a game of Yahtzee with her sister Alex.

But unlike most teens, Maggie isn't about to take a game with her sister or good music for granted, because these days her entire life seems like a roll of the dice.

"After the surgery I might be deaf," Maggie says. "So you know I'm trying to cram in enough music and talk to all my friends before something like happens."

Less than a year ago Maggie was a typical teenager who had just graduated from Washington High School in Sioux Falls. But her summer fun with friends was cut short when she decided to get her tonsils out.

"Turns out they found that I didn't hear good in this ear," Maggie says. "And they went to put a tube in thinking there was some blockage or something."

"(The surgeon) said, 'Well we tried to put a tube in her ear but we couldn't. There is a huge mass and we need to operate as soon as possible,'" Maggie's mom Julie Flanders says.

Before operating, Maggie underwent an MRI at Sanford hospital in Sioux Falls, that's when doctor's found many non-cancerous tumors had been growing undetected inside her body for years. It's a disease known as Neurofibromatosis Type 2, and it's so rare that nobody in Sioux Falls can treat it.

Maggie was referred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and within weeks she underwent her first surgery.

"This is the tumor that we took out that was compressing the spinal cord here," Neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Link, says as he points to her MRI.

The surgery saved Maggie's spinal cord but she soon developed Spinal Meningitis, meaning it took another surgery and another four months of recovery to get back to normal.

"All the swelling went down. It really looks good," says Dr. Link.

"Yeah, I was called quasi for a while," Maggie replies.

The problem is, Maggie still has too many tumors to count and the next ones she has to worry about are attached to the nerves controlling her hearing and balance and her facial movement.

"You know grade one is normal and grade six is completely paralyzed and on the right I'd say you're a grade 3," says Dr. Link.

It's a good score for Maggie, but a long term threat remains.

"You know the thought of being deaf and having no facial nerve function, no ability to show emotion through facial animation, I think, you know, is a terrible, terrible handicap for somebody to have," says Dr. Link. "And so that's what we're trying to avoid."

And so on this day, Maggie is faced with another operation. Doctors would remove a facial nerve tumor and try to reanimate her face.

"If we hook up the facial nerve to the tongue nerve for instance then over the next year you can get recovery and hopefully get back to close to where you are now," says Dr. Link.

But choosing surgery also means Maggie has a 20 to 50 percent chance of losing hearing in her right ear. It's a difficult decision no matter what your age, but Maggie answers as only a courageous, defiant, 19 year old can.

"You know, after like the second time I was like just leave the tumors and then just let me live and then let me die at like 40, so I can live my life," Maggie says. "But I guess (my parents) want me around."

The reason there is so much uncertainty surrounding the surgery is because Maggie's tumors are so small that the most sensitive MRI machines can't detect exactly where some of the tumors are. Her doctors say they won't know exactly how extensive the problem is until they begin operating.

KSFY will be there before, during and after Maggie's surgery on Firday and we'll tell you about the outcome live at 10:00.