Good Afternoon fellow unlucky people,
I have joined the forum to help me understand this dreadful disease to support my wife and her family
My father-in-law a healthy chap, who is 59 has stage 4 GBM, following a couple of months of tooing and throwing with GPs, A&Es, physios my FiL was diagnosed with a brain tumor, it was suspected to be GBM. He had become effectively paralysed on his left handside, he had seizures most days, the surgeon put him on steroids and scheduled his biopsy for this week. We left him to his own devises as he is fiercely independent, my wife seeing once a week. Last Sunday, I drove to his home to collect him for a family lunch, he was in a much worse condition with his conditions pretty much the same as they were 3 weeks prior, if not worse with a shortness of breath. He stayed at ours one night, till we called 111 the next morning, he was taken to hospital, where the doctors confirmed his sizeable tumor had doubled in size since his MRI scan 2 weeks prior. As such they kept him in the hospital till his hospital. Prior to the scheduled surgery, the doctor said that the surgery would be more procedural and we had the option to go ahead, not seek treatment as there would not be a great chance of surgery success. The doctors seems pretty certain its stage 4 GBM.
My FiL who is a fighter and an optimist went for the surgery
He had his debulking surgery very recently. The surgery seems to have been partially successful but due to the proximity of the tumor frontal lobe. He seems in good spirits following the surgery, we await the MRI, biopsy results, prognosis and future plans.
After reading many of the threads on this forum, I wanted to share our story, to have updates through other people who are in similar situation, and update other people searching at the internet for any clarity to help them through this dreadful situation.
Many Thanks,
Hi Edmund
in addition to what the others have said, can I suggest you contact the local hospice to see if they offer transport to appointments? I know its a service our local hospice offers.
He might surprise you and actually be capable to going alone for some of them. My late husband was 50 when he was diagnosed and went through the same treatment regime. The hospital he attended was 30 miles away but for some of the appointments he opted to go himself by train up until about week 4 when fatigue set in. He couldn't go to any where he was seeing the CNS or Dr as his memory was awful from the start and couldn't find his way from the hospital front door to the clinic on the first floor and then couldn't remember what they'd said to him by the time he came home.
Hope you work out something here.
love n hugs
Wee Me xx
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