Brain Tumor Risks

What are the risks with Brain Tumors?

The most obvious risk is death.  But I have heard the saying "fate worse than death".  And I can see how taken to extreme some of the associated risks of a Brain Tumors could indeed be debilating.

So from my limited knowledge and experience I will attempt to summarize the risks.
The Brain Tumor Risks can be divided into two categories.

1.  The Risk of doing nothing.  ie the risk from the brain tumor itself.

2.  The Risk of doing something,  ie getting treatment.

I do not remember anyone ever telling us the risks, especially about doing nothing.  They might have but you are often not thinking right and some of the more difficult times are a bit of a blur.

First the Risk of doing nothing.

While a lot of people out there will think that doing nothing is the absolute worst thing you can do.  You MUST remember that not everyone has the same experience.  Not every one is coming from the same place.  Not everyone has the same circumstances.

What do you risk if you do nothing.  The obvious risk is that the tumor will get bigger, and will eventually be what causes the end.
The questions here are,  when will the end be and will the circumstances around it be horrible.

There are a lot of people that are scared of kemo, and I have seen radium.  While radium is heaps cleaner, it is still radiation.  

Another member of our extended family (quite distant from us) recently had a scare with prostate cancer (stay with me there is a moral).   He was in his 80's.  The doc said to him.  Straight to hospital for you, most likely radium and some kemo.  Now this relative lives a long way from a major hospital,  so would mean a lot of travel being away from home etc..    He is a bit of a grumpy old fella, and said toe the local doc.  " NO.  I'm not going, I'm not going to do anything about it.  I have had a good innings and will take my chances".  If your like me you would have thought this was a death sentence.  But he is quite right, at 80 he had decided that radium and kemo would not be acceptable.  He had seen radium on his sister and didn't like the look of it.  
So to continue the story,  he had an infection in the prostate and went on anti-biotics.  That cleared up the infection, and on a follow up visit with the doc, the doc said.  "looks like the cancer is reducing,  I don't think radium might be necessary,  I'm glad we decided not to go ahead with it.   My relative replied "WE,  WE,  I decided not to go ahead with it.  ME.  If it was up to you I would be under going treatment for something that looks like it is reducing".

My point here is that while things may get worse,  they may also get better.  Simply a change in diet might help.

In my Dad's case he had a blockage on the drain that drains fluid off the brain.  He basically in 1 week went from being OK, to not being able to stand up,  he was aggressive with people he did not know,  he was very confused all the time unless a member of the family was around.  He under went immediate brain surgery to relieve the pressure off the brain, by putting in a  shunt.  The effects of this were miraculous.  He was back to his old self in a matter of hours.  We saw him in intensive care after the surgery (about 6 hours after). And he was cracking jokes and making everyone laugh.  Dad was back.

This was before any further treatment.  After this he underwent a biopsy, and radium.  (I think he should have undergone kemo but he refused, radium was enough).

At this point in time my dad cannot stand un aided, is very confused, has trouble controlling bodily functions etc.

To this day we wonder what would have happened if after the shunt was put in we said.  Thanks Guys, we're off home.  At that stage he was (apart from the tumor) in really good health.

It is true that things might have gotten far worse a lot quicker.  But they may have also stayed the same.
No one can give you a definitive answer.  All cases are different.  And you rarely ever get a comment from a surgeon or doctor, that says.  Lets just leave it and see.

Second  the Risk of doing something.
(I would like to make a comment here that I really respect surgeons, doctors, medical staff in general.  While I might sound like I'm disillusioned with them, I still have a huge respect for them and their opinions.)
The something you are most likely to be offered for a brain tumor is.
Radium,  Chemo, and Surgery.

There are always risks with surgery,  not matter what surgery.

But Brain Surgery has some far greater risks.

What the surgeons do is cut out a piece of the infected brain.  The trick is to cut out enough of the brain to get all the tumor.  But leave enough of the brain the patient will not end up a vegetable.  You see (from what I understand)  they just cut away bits of the brain,  and every time they cut away a piece, the patient will loose something.  How much they loose and what they loose depends on where the tumor is and how far they have to cut to get the tumor.
It is possible to loose everything and end up a vegetable, loose your personality, loose mobility, loose any sort of strange combination of human functions.  Now these guys doing the surgery are no dills(fools) and  know what they are doing,  they had had the best training and have a great team.  They whole purpose is to remove the tumor,  leaving the patient as much ability to have a normal life as possible.

Not trying to scare anyone,  that is what I have read and understand to be the process.
New techniques are developed all the time, like having the patient awake when they operate.  So they can talk to them and will know immediately if they have gone to far or are going to far.  This is really amazing stuff, someone cutting your head open and cutting bits of the brain our while talking to you,  as amazing as it is, it is also VERY scary.

Radium and Chemo.  There are risks and side effects a mile long.  I will not go into them in a huge way I do not have the typing ability.

My understanding, cancer cells are generally weaker than normal healthy cells.
The trick with radium  and kemo is to give just enough radiation to kill the cancer cells before any of the other cell start getting affected and dying.  At some stage you will kill normal cells, and cancer cells.  Getting all the cancer is the trick.

One of the questions with Radium and Chemo is what else does if affect.  Are there any side effects like other cancers because of the radiation?

There is a great site dedicated to just Chemo side effects Cancer Research Org