sister in law has breast cancer now moved to brain..can some one be truthfull...

[mindermummy]

we dont know what this means...

she had breast cancer...had chemo and radiotherapy, and lost her breast.

Now has been told it has spread to her brain.

We are in shock....but want to know where this leads?
ie is this serioulsly bad, or is there good hope?

please be honest.xx

What terrible news. I do think it is just that, terrible. Every individual reacts to treatment differently, so there will be no hard and fast rules - the prognosis one person has could bear no resemblance to your SIL's prognosis, but overall having secondaries is pretty bad news.

Sorry for your family

The ones in her brain are known as metastasis, they are secondary tumours. They will possibly try to do something but her cancer is going to be hard to treat, it's bad. I'm so terribly sorry. Medicine is progressing all the time though, there's new therapies availiable all the time that can help so don't completely give up hope.

I'm so terribly sorry. Her consultant will be able to say more as he will have all the test results.

So sorry to hear your bad news.
My mum had a brain tumour but that was her primary cancer.
I am afraid brain mets are very serious

When my mother's cancer spread to her brain she died about 2 months later. She didn't know who anyone was for about the last month. But this was a very long time ago - the 80s; there have almost certainly been an awful lot of developments since then. I read that most people with metatastic brain tumours (ie where the cancer has spread from somewhere else, like the breast) die of their primary cancer rather than the brain tunour. And that treatment can extend life and quality of life significantly. I'm sorry you're going through this.

It's never good news when cancer comes back, especially when it's far from where it started.

If she just has one tumour in her brain, and they can't find any signs of other spread, then they may treat it agressively with surgery and intensive radiotherapy and hope that they will go. If there are several, then she may have radiotherapy to shrink the tumours and control their effect on her, but with no aim of getting rid of them long term.

i am so sorry for you and your family.My brother had kidney cancer they said it had gone after they removed his kidney about 2 years later it returned in the form of a brain tumour. Sadly he died about 2 years after but you nevr know things are being dicovered all the time this was 4 years ago

I'm sorry to hear your news.
No, secondary is never good news. My DF had secondary in the brain over 9 yrs ago... i'm not going to give you a good / bad news story because you'll find from here on in, when you tell people they will then respond with "well I know of XX who had the same and ....."

Surfice to say that there is a book, I got it from amazon 'What Can I Do to Help: 75 Practical Ideas for Family and Friends from Cancer's Frontline' ...that may prove useful for you and your family.

If you want to get involved or suggest perhaps ask for or about, or google
fractionated radiation therapy
alternative therapies
support for the family also, as well as the patient.

positive thoughts on there way.

Am a so for your SIL and for your family mindermummy.

When a secondary cancer has spread to bone or brain then unfortunately there is very rarely a good prognosis. In the case of my mother her secondary was bone cancer (following breast cancer) and she lived a further 3 months after they said there was no further proactive treatment available, but please be prepared, it can be only a matter of weeks. Often an indication is are they are proposing to treat or to offer palliative care?

If your SIL is able to, she should state now what she wants to do later on: whether to be at home or hospice and, if she can contemplate this, and other practical decisions, as often medication and pain relief is opiate based and can cloud the mind.

My mum had secondary tumours in her bones which then spread to her brain. Now this may have been unique to my mum but she took steroid treatment and the tumours disappeared completely. Unfortunately it didn't have much effect anywhere else and she died four years ago, but that was seven years after the secondary diagnosis.

It depends on so many things; how advanced the tumours are, what type of treatment your SIL best responds to. It isn't good news but you have got to make the most of the time you have left with her.

I'm so sorry for you. It's such a bastard of an illness. It's four years ago tomorrow for my mum actually.

Big hugs to you and your family.

thank you all for your honesty, a very hard time ahead i feel.
Lets see what happens when her consultant comes back to her next week.
thank you.
xxxxx

There's alot of support on here mindermummy, please do remember that no matter how bad things get, there's always people on here who have time to send an ear.