Dear Doctor,
I am from Bangalore, India. My mother, 67 years old, had a lesion on her left lung which was operated. After 6 months we found that she had a 2 cm tumor in the left lobe of her brain. Had radiation, SRT, chemo,temodal etc but it did not shrink. The last was surgery. The surgery seemed to have gone well. A week after the surgery she developed head aches only during the early hours of the morning to date. However, they do not seem to be so bad now (i.e. 2 months after the surgery).She is loosing weight like mad and is presently on liquid diet. Today, she managed to take a little solid. She is being given tonics,B-complex and a good liquid diet. We also observed that her right leg and hand is not put to much use. What could be the reason. Also she walked after surgery but now we have to carry her about. She is not able to sit up alone or walk. Please advise if this is due to complete weakness and if she will be fine with good food.
Dr. Joshua’s Answer
It is not clear from your question whether the lesion in the lung was diagnosed as cancer, and whether the brain tumor was diagnosed as a lung cancer metastasis, but given only the above information, I can only assume it is so. It seems reasonable to suspect that she has right sided hemiparesis (motor weakness) due to either the effects of the brain surgery (damage to the left side of the brain due to direct damage, blood flow disturbance, venous or arterial), or residual or new tumor, or related oedema (swelling of brain tissue). If possible, a head CT or MRI would be informative. If she is losing weight and her condition is deteriorating, it may be a sign of the lung cancer activating in some part of her body, or then again something else. I cannot say for sure, but you should talk to her doctor about her current condition. If the right sided weakness was caused by the brain surgery, after two months if there is no improvement, it is possible that the weakness will not improve much in the future. It is of course important to take care of proper nutrition, but in her case other causes for her poor condition should be considered.
Discuss this topic on the Health Forum
More answers in Brain Tumor, Cancer, Internal Medicine, Lungs, Neurology, Neurosurgery
