On 4/24/2008
Fightingback wrote:
I have been taking care of my mom diagnosed with GBM IV on 7/07. She has had surgery, radiation, and chemo. On her first MRI in 10/07 the was a recurrence. Each MRI has shown progression from the initial 100% resection. The Gamma Knife has seemed to help the most with the progression, it actually stopped or slowed regrowth. The Gamma Knife was done in 01/08 and since then she has been on Decadron. I have read as much as I can asd spoke to all the Doctors and seem to get the same answer about Decadron. Right now she has lost her short term memory and does not know the day, date, or year. Yesterday I took her to the hospital because she said she was having chest pains. I first was thinking that this could be from the Avastian. She has has 3 cycles. We go to the hospital and they cant find anything wrong with her except for the tumor. In the last week she has declined more than in the last 9 months. When I got her home from the hospital she was sitting up and furiously rocking back and forth, jitterning, paranoid, and just plain uncomfortable. The Doc's are telling me that it is Steroidal Psychosis.
I apologize for the crudeness in my post but I have not slept in 2 days. Is there anyone who has has a negative side affect to Decadron?
It amazes me that through the Radiation, Chemo, Avastian, Pain Meds, and the Thirty other Meds that Decadron would seemingly have the worst reaction too.
Ranting, Raving, Upset, Hurt, Crying, Confused, Sick, Sleepness, and Unknowing,
Dan
Dan,
I am sorry to hear what you are going through and can totally relate, as I went/am going through the same thing with my father. He has had GBM for 5 years with many ups and downs. To make a long story short, he was on Avastin and CPT-11 with stable MRIs and then suddenly started to deteroriate after Christmas. By mid-Feb he could barely walk and was in a wheelchair, confused, etc. We went back to Duke with a new MRI in hand and it turns out he has severe brain damage from the Avastin... looked like he had many strokes in the brain and it was very swollen. We tried increasing the Decadron, but it did nothing. He had zero quality of life and they told us 3-6 months and we enrolled him in Hospice. He decided to stop all steroids last week and is really declining-we don't expect him to live much longer. It is truly a nightmare and is horrible to see you beloved family member like this. The point of this story is to perhaps see what a new MRI shows. We expected the tumor to have expanded based on his status, but it was brain damage from the Avastin.