Hard on the brain

Hard on the brain and brain scan report

There was an article on the star newspaper (6th May 2009) entitled “ Hard on the brain. After chemotherapy, patients can experience huge cognitive problems”. This couldn’t be more true for Norman! It is indeed a widespread problem for cancer patient, especially brain tumor patient who have undergone brain radiation therapy as well.

After 30 fractions of radiotherapy and 6 cycles of Temozolomide chemo treatment, welcome to chemo brain! Nowadays, Norman struggled to find the right word for an object or is unable to type out a letter smoothly (he could not spell words correctly). He could no longer multitask as he easily lost concentration and the ability to focus. On top of that he suffers short term memory loss too! All these occurrences shake his confidence and upset him tremendously. Friends said he looks good but they don’t really know what he is still going through. All these problems could be the results of chemotherapy and radiation therapy damaging the brain’s ability to grow new cells.

Lately, Norman gets tire easily. On Tuesday ( 13th may), he had a mild facial fit after playing 18 hole of golf. We were worried sick! Yesterday (14th may) we had a brain scan done. The report shows the tumor now measure 3.5 x 3.4 x 4.5 cm in size and still massive edema present. It is this edema that is causing him the fits. Again the Dr put him on high doses of steroids. So now he not only have a chemo brain but also a steroid brain! God bless him! Sob! I don’t know how much more of this medication abuse we can take! I am so tire from so much fear. I might just freak out but the Dr said I have to be strong for him. So, the battle continues……