To think something is off here?

[Thegirlinthegreenscarf]

Way back early 2022 my colleague said that she got diagnosed with stage 4 Glioblastoma brain cancer. Of course we all naturally felt so sorry for her and since have done everything we can to make sure that her life is easier. She has a husband and two young children. In 2024 my colleague said that she had surgery which removed most of the tumour but she was still terminally unwell.

The thing that's at the back of my mind is that she's never changed in appearance never looks unwell. Still puts in all the work hours etc.

Am I being unreasonable to think she's maybe playing us all?

I used to flat share with someone who lied about having cancer and various other ailments. She went so far as to get doctors to perform exploratory abdominal surgery on her. They couldn’t find anything wrong and she then claimed to have melanoma and breast cancer. It was exhausting. She had various other issues and I think it was obvious to most people that she wasn’t normal. I can’t say for sure about your colleague but it does sound odd that someone who had brain radiation and brain surgery didn’t lose their hair or suffer any other effects. Like you said it could have been a wig but if I’d had my scalp sliced open I wouldn’t want to wear a wig for a good while until the scar had healed. And if it wasn’t a wig, her hair would have been shaved where they made the incision. Usually whole brain radiation also causes hair loss.
I guess she could be lucky but 🧐

I believe so.

When she first joined the family, she had ‘kidney failure’. When the children came along, they had the medical problems.

I later found out that her parents and siblings had challenged her over her behaviour which was when she’d moved on to fooling our family.

Once her children were older, the focus moved back to the relative.

Looking back, I’m most disturbed by the first child’s accidents.

I’m told that there was also some insurance fraud - non-medical.

Also is it possible it’s a grade 4 glioblastoma not stage 4? Because these are very different things.

Grade 4 means the cells are highly abnormal (and I believe all glioblastomas are classified as grade 4 because of the type cancer it is). Stage 4 means it has metastasised beyond the local area, to the lungs or the liver, for example.

Grade 4 might mean it can be operated on and removed and with treatment prevented from recurring if they get it all out. Stage 4 would mean it’s spread such that it would be difficult to cure.

I don’t think staging is used for glioblastoma. It also doesn’t really spread to other organs. All glioblastomas are grade 4.

Grade 4 might mean it can be operated on and removed and with treatment prevented from recurring if they get it all out.

Also generally not for a glioblastoma. Even if they get it all out it usually comes back very quickly. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone surviving it long term (as in being cured from it) but maybe there are some.
With things like breast cancer they use both grading and staging and you can have a high grade tumour but early stage and you can get rid of it and it then doesn’t come back. But I don’t think the same applies for brain tumours like this one.

At work will catch up with the thread as soon as I can. I would never say anything to her or anyone about my 1% suspicion about this. I probably am just over thinking because of that Netflix program. She is such a lovely person and is popular. We do get on well when we see each other in passing.

I couldn’t even do that after having a colonoscopy under ga.

I don’t know if you’re colleague is faking or not but if I was diagnosed with such an aggressive poor prognosis cancer the very last thing I’d be doing is going to work . I’d tap my pension, savings , benefits whatever to enjoy my last months / years .

Yeah. There’s just no way that is remotely true. Brain surgery takes it out of you and I can’t think of any operations under GA where you’d be able to do the school run hours later. Maybe the pp meant her friend had a radiotherapy session or something.

Going by the type of cancer I'd presume someone would be very obviously ill and unable to work. My mum had a stage 4 glioblastoma and died within 6 weeks, she had so many symptoms but she never got any treatment as it was too advanced. My dad had lymphoma and you would never have known he was sick at all. He breezed through his surgery and treatments, had no side effects.

My husband died from this. Its the most aggressive form of cancer there is, there is no cure, no getting better, 2yrs max if your lucky (very few get to 5yrs) Symptoms very but effects speech/movement. Brain surgery is intense, they can remove some of it but not all (they call it the spider cancer, its legs grows round the brain), they shave your hair and your in hosp recovering for at least 4-6 weeks.

to lie about this (or any cancer/illness) is despicable and an insult to those who have it/or watched someone go through it.

Or perhaps it wasn’t a brain tumour but a pituitary tumour, which are usually benign. The pituitary is on the underside if the brain, but a pituitary tumour is not a brain tumour.

How awful. I so sorry, this is terribly intrusive, but please can I ask what happened to her children? I’ll be worrying about them all day otherwise. Hope you all are doing ok considering x

I have a close relative with brain cancer in the frontal lobe. Initial symptoms were seizures which would be difficult to hide but obviously not everyone presents with the same symptoms. He had to stop work due to the seizures.
The first brain biopsy was ‘easy’ and he was relatively back to normal within 10 days.
He has since had a complete resection due to the size of the tumor growth over the last two years. The growth itself presented with noticeable physical limitations in terms of his mobility (it affected one side of his body), speech was slurred, memory affected and his executive functioning was impaired to the point where he was unable to function independently (he basically went crazy and made some terrible life decisions). It would have been hard to ignore the signs.
Post surgery he had chemo and radiotherapy and not a lot has changed despite the tumor being almost 100% removed. He is now in full time care.

But not everyone is the same. I met a friend whose husband died from brain cancer and he had surgery twice to remove tumors. The first time he returned to work and was himself. The second time she says he was noticeably ill and eventually succumbed.

I guess the things that would affect your appearance and behavior would be size of tumor, whether it’s a reoccurrence (surgery a 2nd time is rare I believe due to poor prognosis), how early it is treated, your general overall health in order to cope better and then where in the brain the tumor is and what body and mental functions are affected by that area of the brain.

That also being said, chemo and radiotherapy are particularly fatigue inducing treatments.

Yes all glioblastoma are grade 4 and rarely metastasise , They are extremely invasive and not one 'lump' so to speak, they have 'legs' and are almost impossible to remove completely.

Yeah, you can’t bring it up as you will come across really badly so you may as well put it out of your mind
The cases of people lying about cancer are pretty rare I think so hopefully she isn’t lying otherwise it would be completely warped

If this colleague is working freelance, she may be self-employed.

Non cancerous but yeah under general anaesthetic. She couldn’t drive but wanted to be there for her son. She didn’t look good mind you, she’s much better now 😊

They are rare but it made me think of a local school secretary who faked cancer. The whole school rallied around her and fundraiser for her medical costs. Turns out she was just a criminal at heart and had been defrauding the school of other money as well.

I wonder if she ever got sentenced and served time.

This in spades.

I wouldn’t question it somebody would have to be pretty awful to make up something like that.

So nothing at all like the situation in the OP then…..

My brother died of this. If she has survived beyond 3 years that is incredible, but it’s impossible for her to be functioning as you describe at this stage unless she is a medical miracle.

Not everyone will lose their hair, but those that do will lose all of their hair, including body hair, eyebrows, & eyelashes.

My Dr who was terminally ill with cancer looked a picture of health. I only found out just before she died, & I felt awful as she’d supported me for years with it. At least it stopped me moaning about it.

That on Netflix wasn’t the comedy about the boy who was wrongfully diagnosed with cancer was it? He enjoyed all the attention so much that him & his Dr kept up the pretence.

This is really difficult but you can’t say anything. I know two people who have had glioblastoma. Two young, fit and otherwise very healthy individuals. Both were dead within a year despite surgery and active treatments. It’s an aggressive and incurable cancer. There is one article I read on a “super survivors” report of a woman who had it and has, five years on, no recurrence of her tumour but she really is an outlier. This was to do with research about how a few people can survive cancers that would otherwise kill the rest of us.

The people I know declined extremely rapidly and did not look like the same people they were before. They both also became very much disabled physically. On that basis, I’d feel doubtful for sure, but she may just be one of the very small percentage of lucky ones.