Ovarian Cancer & Brain Mets

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Jodie VanZant
Jodie VanZant Member Posts: 4
in Ovarian Cancer #1
Hello all,
I am fairly new to ACS I would like to start off by saying hello and god bless.
I am a caregiver to my mother she is 63, very young in my eyes. At 40 years of age she was dx with bc, chemo, radiation and partial mastectomy, for 20 years she was in remission. Last year at the age of 62 she was dx with Ovarian cancer stage IIIc, and 8 inch tumor was removed during the debulking followed by 6 months of chemo therapy, (Taxol and Carboplatin), Clear after that but 6 months later the cancer came back but in her brain this time, now she is stage IV.....She lost all function in the right hand side of her body and she was extremely disoriented, we had to rush her to the ER and they put her in ICU for 4 days, hospital for a week and an aftercare center for a month following. 4 tumors ranging from .05 to 3.2 mm, she went through 14 treatments of radiation to the whole brain and the tumors shrunk but did not go away.....Next step was Gamma knife radiosurgery....so we still had hope, her oncologist set her up for the procedure and 2 days before that was to happen her insurance denied it so an appeal was filed, 2 mo waiting and not being able to do anything the tumors continued to grow......FINALLY it was approved, 2 days before the surgery she lost full function of the right hand side of her body again and also extremely disoriented again. Yesterday she had a MRI before the Gamma Knife surgery and the tumors more than tripled in size, one of the tumors measures 18 mm and the other is around 12 mm and the other 2 are 2 mm and 3 mm. We now have to wait 6 weeks before they do another MRI to see if the Gamma knife worked or not. I know this is very long winded but I wanted to give you the details and I am wondering if anyone out there has the same situation and what the outcome was or is.

Also she is BRCA1+ and my sister and I are also positive.

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  • mopar
    mopar Member Posts: 1,972 Member
    #2
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    PRAYERS TO YOU, JODIE
    Your dear Mother has been through so much, as well as you and your family. While I cannot offer any experience comparable to your mother's, possibly other women here will have some words of wisdom for you. In the meantime you and your Mom are in my thoughts and prayers, Jodie. Were they able to tell you what they could diminish with the gamma knife? We'll hope that the next MRI shows major improvement.

    (((HUGS)))
    Monika
  • leesag
    leesag Member Posts: 621 Member
    #3
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    BrainMets
    Jodie,

    I was diagnosed in Jan. 2010 and after debulking and chemo was declared NED in July 2010. Then in May 2011, I was diagnosed with brain mets. While I didn't have motor issues, my tumors were primarily located in the left frontal region causing me to have expressive aphasia. I underwent three different procedures. First, I had a craniotomy to remove the large tumor in the front of my brain. Then I had fifteen sessions of whole brain radiation to reduce the tumors closer to the back of my brain. Finally, I had gamma knife in August to make it all go away. I had my second post surgery MRI last week, and received the good news that my head is empty!

    My expressive aphasia has resolved and, as far as I can tell, there are no residual effects from any of my treatments, except fatigue and hair loss. Yes, the radiation made me bald and I was more fatigued during radiation than I was on chemo.

    But I'm still here!

    ;)
    Leesa

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