Hi All
i hope you are keeping safe and well.
Brian and I received some more bad news yesterday, Brian now has a tumour on the left side of his brain, over the last few weeks I noticed Bri was appearing to be a little confused, and first thing in the morning he appeared not to be able to speak but the consultant put this down to side effects of the medication (oramorph) and Bri having a very dry mouth!!!
Obviously I have been monitoring this very closely. When we attended the last appointment with the consultant Tuesday 7th July Bri was really struggling to string a sentence together, the consultant and Alison (the cancer nurse) appeared shocked about Brian’s deterioration and again said it could be side effects of the Enzalutamide so the consultant advised that Bri stopped taking the Enzalutamide for two weeks and if things didn’t improve he would request a brain scan.
on Friday 10th July we had our first visit from the Macmillan nurse Liz, again she is very nice but was VERY concerned about Brian’s speech and the way that he could not communicate with her, she advised if things didn’t improve or got worse then I should call the rapid response. With in an hour of her leaving Bri got worse, he was vomiting and then had a really bad headache, I got him up to bed and he fell asleep straight away totally exhausted.
without hesitation I rang the rapid response, as Bri was settled in bed we agreed that I would get him to Derby Royal first thing Saturday morning (11 July).
Due to covid the unwell room for chemotherapy are sharing the lymphodima ward, the nurse Melanie took Bri to a room then came back to me and collected all the information, she said Bri needed a CT scan of his brain straight away. She allowed me to stay in the waiting area. When the results of the scan came back I was devastated, unfortunately at the moment Bri can’t comprehend what is going on, he asked why I was upset (heartbreaking where has my Bri gone?)
The tumour is on the left side of his brain we don’t know yet if it’s cancer or if it’s a meningioma, the hospital are sending the scans to Nottingham where they specialise in Brain trauma, hopefully we will know by the end of this week what it is.
Bri is on Dexamethasone to help reduce the swelling in his brain. He is at home wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s absolutely heartbreaking seeing him trying to make sense of what is going on and then not being able to put the right words with his thoughts, hopefully once the swelling reduces things may improve.
stay safe and well everyone 🌈