Brain Tumor Treatment And Risks
A Short Audio about the treatment my dad under went, not so mucha bout the treatment, but more about the decision around taking the treatment.
Brain Tumor Treatment
Download the MP3 Brain Tumor Treatment.
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
This Article is not about Brain Tumors it is about breast cancer, but the basic treatment options are the same.
Your team of doctors will make treatment recommendations based on the stage of your cancer. Your standard treatment options may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and hormone therapy. If you have been diagnosed with DCIS or LCIS, your stage is the lowest and the road you will travel will be easier. For DCIS, your options may include breast-conserving surgery or mastectomy with or without radiation and hormone therapy.
LCIS treatments options are a bit different. They include observation to determine changes, hormone therapy to prevent cancer from developing, or bilateral prophylactic (preventive) mastectomies.
Things get more complicated when your cancer spreads beyond the ducts or lobes/lobules. Once your cancer has been staged, you can visit www.cancer.gov to determine your treatment options. They will typically include: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and/or hormone therapy. For IBC, treatment options are similar to the other types of breast cancer, but they will always include chemotherapy because of its aggressiveness.
• Surgery: Breast surgery can be either a lumpectomy, where the tumor is removed, or a partial or modified radical mastectomy. With a lumpectomy, it is typically followed by radiation. This way, you get to keep your breast and studies have shown no difference in survival rates between lumpectomy/radiation and mastectomy.
Note: Not too long ago, they used to perform radical mastectomies where the breast, all the lymph nodes, and the underlying muscle were cut away. Thankfully, medicine has discovered that's not necessary. Now, a partial or modified radical mastectomy is performed, where either part of the breast tissue, or the entire breast, and possibly a portion of the lymph nodes, are removed. On the whole, a mastectomy isn't too bad a surgery, although everyone is different. I found both of mine to be quite easy, but you will wake up with drain tubes, which you’ll typically have for at least a week.
• Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy is defined by Wikipedia as “the use of chemical substances to treat disease. In its modern-day use, it refers primarily to cytotoxic drugs used to treat cancer.” This can be a frightening prospect for anyone. We've all heard horror stories about how very debilitating chemotherapy can be. However, much progress has been made in the management of chemo's side effects, to the point that, once you have the right management tools, you can continue to enjoy the activities you typically do. Chemo is a means of treating your cancer systemically and is typically recommended for those whose tumor is larger than a certain size and/or the cancer has spread to your lymph nodes. The thinking is that if your cancer has had the opportunity to access the rest of your body, your treatment should be systemic as well.
• Radiation: Radiation therapy is typically a localized treatment option, where rapidly dividing cells are damaged. Cancer cells are very rapid dividers, so radiation is an effective option. Typically, radiation therapy is given for about six weeks, five days a week. It's very much like lying still for an x-ray, only instead of lasting a second or two, it lasts a couple of minutes. It can cause fatigue, toward the end and slightly after, and can cause a sunburn effect on your skin.
• Hormone Therapy: Many breast cancers are hormone-dependent. In these cancers, there are receptors on the tumor that can be filled with estrogen. The thinking is that when estrogen fills these receptors, it causes the tumor to grow. This is called estrogen-receptor positive (ER). These cancers respond well to hormone therapy and the hormone therapy drug that will be recommended for you will depend on your menopausal status. These drugs are in pill form and you take them once a day. The most popular of these drugs, for pre-menopausal women, is Tamoxifen and, for post-menopausal women Femara or Arimidex. There is new evidence that suggests that taking Femara, after taking Tamoxifen for five years, increases survival rates.
• Immunotherapy: There is a fourth modality of treatment on the horizon and it's called Immunotherapy. This involves getting your immune system to fight your cancer and there is, and will be, a lot of research being done in this area.
Melissa Buhmeyer is a breast cancer survivor and has been so for seven years. She is also the founder of http://www.breastcancer-treatment.us, a site focusing on breast cancer treatment options, news, articles, and survivor experiences.
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