I'm not sure where to start. I have been pretty much a lurker on this site since my 44 year old sister was diagnosed March 26th, 06. It was the worst day of my life. I got a phone call that my sister had a seizure (which she never had one in her life) and was in the hospital. I rushed over there and they did a cat scan and we were laughing while waiting for the results. Never in a million years did we think the emergency rm dr. would come in and tell us "i'm very sorry, but you have a large mass in your brain!!!!". We froze in shock and my sister, my husband and myself were all speechless. Then the dr went on to say that it probably came from either breast cancer or lung cancer and he said do you smoke and she said yes and they did a chest x-ray which confirmed lung cancer. Everything after that was basically a blurr of tests, drs, etc..., which she was then diagnosed with stage 1v lung cancer and a 3-4 cm brain tumor. We had her transferred to sloan kettering in manhattan here she underwent brain surgery and they thought they got most to all of the tumor and she was going to receive stero-tactic radiation as a follow-up, and within a week after the surgery the tumor was growing and she was no longer a candidate for the stereo-tactic (sp?) and would need whole brain radiation. At this point her symptoms were getting worse. She was having alot of weakness on her right side and a hard time getting her words out. After her last radiation she seemed a little better and they thought she may qualify for the stereo-tactic radiation, but within a week after they thought that she was getting worse again and they said that if the tumor was growing again she would not be able to get it. Needless to say, she started having more seizures and symptoms getting much worse (hardly able to walk or use right arm), had another mri - tumor growing, excessive swelling (and already on 24 mg of decatron), dr. said that the tumor is so agressive and chemo will not help, that it is time to call in hospice. She then had another seizure, we had another mri and another opinion from another dr. and they are saying the same thing. So now she is at home with hospice and getting worse everyday. She cannot walk, feed herself, speak and they say approximately 2 months left to live. This has been the most horrific experience that my family is going through. How someone can be fine one day and this happen the next day.
Just needed to vent - thanks for listening.