Secondary brain tumour cure

Hi BeefyMoo,

My name is Keith and I’m one of the Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

 I hope you’re finding the support and information from our online community helpful.

This sounds like a difficult time for you right now. From what you are telling me there are so many unanswered questions going through your mind right now.  This isn’t the first time that I have been asked these questions and won’t be the last.

Every situation is different and every person who gets a cancer diagnosis is affected in so many ways both physically and emotionally. Both from the diagnosis as well as the treatment.

At this point it OK not to be OK.

But it’s important you keep in touch with your treatment team. Let them know what you’re thinking, so they can give you the best possible support both physically as well as emotionally.

You mentioned you haven’t been introduced to your CNS. To contact your CNS, we would advise giving your consultant’s secretary a call (usually through the main switchboard of the hospital where you are being treated) and ask to be put in touch with your CNS.

On this platform as we are a charitable organisation, we don’t have access to your individual medical records. For this reason, we have limited information regarding your situation. Therefore, we can only give general advice.

Any cancer outcome varies from person to person. If caught early and is contained in one area curative intent is usually quite high in most cases. Even if curative intent isn’t possible there are active treatments that can be offered to give more time and slow down any possible progression or recurrence.  

You mentioned secondary spread and the worry it could be elsewhere. This is a possibility, however the positive out of the negative here is that the consultants from what you have told me is confident that they have removed the full tumour.

So possibly the next conversation will be the possibility of further treatment (adjuvant therapy) to reduce the possibility of recurrence if needed. So, it may be worthwhile discussing the possibility of this with your treatment team. You also mentioned a 6-week period before you are reviewed again, this is a normal period for this to happen. However, contacting you CNS, as I have previously discussed, would be more than acceptable to do so before this appointment, where you can discuss any concerns further. At this point people can and do go to the worst-case scenario. This isn’t always the case.  As I have already said everyone is different. Try to take this one step at a time and be guided by your treatment team regarding their expectations moving forward.

I hope this information is helpful. You can always call one of our nurses directly if you want to talk over your concerns or require any further support.

take care.

Keith, Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email.

 REF KM/GH

Thank you Keith for your reply. It's frustrating that I haven't been given a way to easily contact the neurology department with questions, but I'll do as you suggested and try to find who I can contact who will know answers to all my questions.

Thanks again.
Geoff.