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Originally Posted by manaboutown
I am relieved to hear the OP got his father a diagnosis. Hopefully his father will receive state of the art treatment from highly skilled and experienced physicians and staff.
Brain tumor diagnosis can be hit or miss because brain tumors are relatively rare. My migraine prone 42 year old daughter was getting more headaches than usual and getting cranky. One morning she passed out while getting her dog water. This occurred during the holidays and her primary care physician was not in so a PA ordered blood tests which revealed nothing. A week later she had a seizure in the shower. This time her primary care physician was able to see her. Having recently diagnosed another patient with a brain tumor she sent my daughter for an MRI STAT. Life changed for all of us that day. The diagnosis was GBM. After surgical removal of all the tumor that could be safely taken out, radiation and chemo followed. After awhile another tumor was found in a follow up MRI. A gamma knife procedure and more chemo ensued. At present, she is tumor free. Mean life expectancy for GBM is about 15 months. My daughter is still alive after 40 months. I attribute it to the high quality medical care she has received and continues to obtain as well as lots of prayers from many caring people..
Her initial MRI showed the tumor which was hard to miss, about the size of a 60 watt incandescent light bulb. Her bimonthly followup MRIs are done on very high resolution (expensive) equipment. We participate in a brain tumor support group and have discovered that some patients have had very small tumors, even clusters of them. Such tumors may be hard to pick up using a typical MRI device. When her second tumor was discovered her world class neurosurgeon did not see it until after a second MRI showed it. He went back and found a hardly noticeable pinhead sized image in the prior MRI. Few regional hospitals are equipped or staffed to deal with brain tumors. I am happy to hear the OP got his father to a medical facility equipped to diagnose and treat his father's tumor.
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Your daughter is in our prayers as are you. Sometimes we forget the stress and challenges others around us face.