Is your tumor in a parietal lobe?

the_liz_army said:

Left parietal lobe with ambidextrous person
Hi, Deb.

Thanks for sharing your story (you too, OCMenno).

Presenting symptoms:
My only symptoms were two grand mal seizures (the crazy, flailing, unconscious type).

Affected lobe:
Left parietal

Seizures:
Since the tumor was in my left brain, seizures materialized on the right side of my body. I've had three grand mal seizures, and a myriad of partial seizures. After I was put on anti-epileptic drugs the seizures settled down and varied from visible jerking of the limbs and chest (motor seizure), to having my entire right side loose the sensation of touch (sensory seizure), and a coordination seizure where my right hand would be unable to judge the distance of objects in space and grasp them (similar to what you were talking about, Deb). Partial seizures lasted as long as 20 minutes (in a Starbucks!), to 20 seconds. Thanks to drugs and surgery my seizures are controlled and no longer freak me out!

Handedness:
I am ambidextrous.
If you're right handed and your left brain is affected, after surgery you may have problems with speech/writing/calculation. The opposite is true if you're left handed. This presented a problem for doctors and me ... we didn't know which lobe contained my communication and calculating skills.

Treatment:
Craniotomy, 9/17/08
Craniotomy, 2/6/09
Temodar, began 3/2/09

Effects of treatment:
* depth perception: only noticeable when I'm going down stairs
* balance (vestibular system): I have a hard time staying balanced if my eyes are closed
* sensory perception: I have minor sensory loss on the right side (things just feel different)
* awareness of your body in space (proprioception): this is noticeable about once every other day; I'll move my hands to do something on autopilot and as soon as my right hand comes into view I'm startled for a second, wondering, "Who's hand is that?"
* language skills: not affected
* writing skills: not affected
* calculation skills: not affected

After surgery:
Sensory strip was slightly affected, motor strip is fine.

It has been a month since my second brain surgery and I feel fine! I left the hospital moving slowly with a cane, and I ditched the cane about two weeks ago.

I'm happy to be here.

Liz

the_liz_army said:

Hey Skinner,
Thank you for
Hey Skinner,

Thank you for sharing. I know this is terrible, but is nice to hear from someone with similar experiences. I live in northern California and about three weeks ago I met a guy who also has a tumor in the parietal lobe. Needless to say, we had a great time bonding over our maladies!

Liz

Lori2169 said:

Left and Right Parietal Lobe Tumors
I originally wanted to get on here to reply to the liz_army posting which I still want to address, but I have got to tell you, your post touched me to my soul. It seems that while I may have started this year unknowingly with approx. 9 tumors in my brain(which had metastatsisized from my lungs) mostly located in the parietal portion of my brain, both left and right sides, I have never suffered any form of seizures whatsoever. I was just having the most mind-blowing headaches. I told my fiance' and he sort seemed like, "Well take some ibuprofen." Then I made a doctor's appt. and he just kinda blew in off. I had taken a pretty bad fall in our backyard a few weeks earlier and had injured my shoulder and told him I thought the two were connected but that the shoulder wasn't causing me near the pain the headaches were. I would occaisionly see flashes of light. I also had a sinus infection at the same time, so he ignored all else and prescribed an antibiotic and sent me on my way. I was let down. I took the antibiotics, the sinus infetion cleared but the headaches continued and I was due to return for a checkup in two weeks to that same doctor. I felt hopeless, so I thought I would try a chiropractor. After 2 weeks of being with this practice they told me that something was wrong in my brain because my body wasn't reacting the way it was supposed to and that he would like a MRI done, but he couldn't order it, he needed my family physician to order it. So when I went back for my 2 week return checkup after the anti-biotics I told my doctor what the chiro said and he acted upset with me. Next thing I know he is scheduling me for physical therapy for my shoulder and doing nothing for my headaches. Now I had just sat there and during my appt I made it very clear that I could not live with the pain of these headaches any longer, something had to be done. So he leaves the room, his nurse comes in and tells me that the doctor has made repeated calls to my chiro and they have not returned the calls. I go to my chiro that day and I find this is completely untrue. Now it is just about the end of 2008 and I am relaying my frustration at this situation to my gynocologist and he tells me well you know why he is not doing that MRI don't you? I said, no. He goes on to tell me that evidently doctors are offered big bonuses every year and for every test and so forth that they don't perform, they get to keep this money. I was heartbroken. Well that day I went and gave my family doctor's physical therapy a whirl and somehow that must have set things off because the headache really kicked into high gear that evening and I landed in the emergy room with my head and neck blocked. They ran a ct scan and soon found the tumors. At first they didn't know if I had had a heart attack, stroke or cancer. I am 43 and never unhealthy except for the fact that I had been a smoker, until that night. We were having an ice storm this night, but they bundled me up and took me to a more state of the art hospital an hour away because they had the equipment I needed. At this point, we now knew I had Lung Cancer and Brain Cancer, what a shock to me. I thought I was ust having headaches. I was admitted into Penn State Milton Hershey Medical Center for the whole next week and things began to move. They even began my radiation to my brain that first week. I was terrified of all that was going on. I just never realized just how much worse this could have gotten I suppose. There are days when I am so mad at the time my family doctor cost me in getting diagnosed by not getting that MRI ordered for me, there are days when I am playing the pity game with myself and others where I am still completely stunned off my feet that I have this and am still struggling through my treaments. I am having a hard time with nausea and vomiting with my chemo and I have lost all but all strenth in my legs since early in my treatment in early January. But this seems nothing compared to what Pally2nite is faced with, I'm truly sorry. I wish you the best.
I do want to say a few comments to the_liz_army. The reason your post caught my eye is because I was haviing the same problems having the tumors in my brain and receiving radiation to my brain. I tried explaining to my doctor how i would go to get something out of mt patry and find myself in the refrigerator in a state of confustion, then it would hit me, I didn't mean to be in the refrigerator I was simply OFF. Or if I did get in the right place, I wouldn't be able to make my arm go to the place I wanted it to go to, I would be touching the wrong thing. I also lost my ability to write. Numbers became letters, letters other letters, numbers other numbers, I forgot my multiplication tables, the most elementary of things eluded me. I cried constantly out of frustration. I am not a slow peron. I passed the civil service exam with flying colors to get into the Post Offie. So all of this confusion was really frustrating for me. I was also doing a lot of "stupid, careless" things, I was burning food constantly, I was leaving the house with candles lit. When I would do dishes, I had to be extra careful of the knives down in the sink. I would see them and even pick them up and check for the sharp side of the knife before I washed it, but somehow still manage to get on the wrong side of the knife. I go three really deep cuts by this happening to me. I also had a lot of trouble remembering my apppts. until I worked it out with the staff to email me my appts because I couldn't remember anything. Once they realized just how much of a problem this was for me, they accomodated me on this. This is mostly getting better, except for my ability to write and the weakness in my legs and my nausea with my chemo right now. So I just want to wish everyone well, none of this is easy. I'm sorry I droned on and on and on. Oh one more thing for liz I am ambidextrious.

steve68 said:

Symptoms from right parietal lobe tumor
Hi Liz,

I have a grade II diffuse astrocytoma that is mainly in my right parietal lobe. (I am right-handed). It has spread to right occipital, right frontal, and to left parietal (gliomatosis cerebri). My symptoms have so far not given me much discomfort. I have had difficulty determining what symptoms have been caused by treatment (biopsy, radiation, temodar, decadron), and what have been caused by the disease. I was not a candidate for surgery. So, for what it's worth...
- depth perception - has not been affected
- balance - somewheat affected. I can walk up and down stairs, but my soccer-playing days are over
- no proprioception issues
- no sensory perception issues
- language and writing skills - minor issues so far, mixing up the beginning of one word with the next. i have to write in short sentences and stitch them together into something more normal. This may be largely an attention-span issue.
- I couldn't do calculations for a while (especially in my head), but that has recently come back. I retained understanding of math concepts throughout.
- was really sleepy during radiation therapy (whole brain) aand for several weeks after words, and had no appetite
- I have a left hand tremor that is making it difficult to play the guitar and I'm breaking a lot of dishes.
- Easily confused, forgetful, need to do one thing at a time.
- Difficulty finding things. Difficulty remembering where things are. Sometimes forget what I am doing.

Steve

Borrowing your words, Steve