My friend's husband has 8 months to live.

[CTyankee]

He is 64, thin and very active physically. My friend mentioned to me in early May that he was forgetting things lately and repeating the same things he's just said a few minutes earlier. She was fearful it was Alzeimer's since his Dad had it. A month ago he collapsed while out running. A police cruiser found him and took him to the hospital where they found 3 tumors on his brain. Two were benign and were removed. The third was a malignancy. They took out as much as they could.

He was on chemo til last week when his platelets starting dropping. He will probably have a transfusion this week. He is even more confused than before.

My friend is frantic and exhausted. She knows he can't help it, but she is angry and she feels ashamed of being angry around him. She has to watch over him so he won't take the car out as he says he wants to do. His boss called her and told her his coworkers had noticed his problems at work but they felt they couldn't talk to her about him because of Privacy Act concerns.

Luckily, she has friends and family around, but it isn't enough. She is joining a caregivers group. I have shared with her what I did when my husband was going thru a health crisis, but it isn't the same since my husband's problem was solved by surgery and he is fine.

It feels like my entire circle of women friends are becoming widows...one after another...

[wtmusic]

1. .

:hug:

[sinkingfeeling]

2. It's called getting older. I'm about to attend my 45th. class reunion. There were only 52

in my class and now that we're all 63 or 64, there are only 47 of us left. Almost 10% are gone.

[CTyankee]

3. We are going to my husband's 50th class reunion and were talking about

how many were already gone at his last reunion. They are having more of them now. I guess so people can be in touch more before the inevitable happens...

[SheilaT]

12. I just attended my 45th, and I'd say

there were altogether somewhat more than 10% who have died, although I didn't do an actual count. I graduated with just over 400, and there's probably another 50 or so who simply have disappeared over the years, and no one knows where they are.

[handmade34]

4. it is a lonely place to be

...that of a caregiver... I swore I would die before my husband when he was terminal... it is frustrating and difficult and often lonely... hugs to her :hug:

[CTyankee]

5. I just can't imagine...even tho I experienced that anger I at least knew my husband

was going to be OK. I have seen 3 of my friends go thru this same scenario and another who saw her husband struck with a heart attack that killed him right away. I don't know what is worse, the sudden shock or the drawn out agony of seeing him ebb away...

[Not Me]

6. Be the best friend you can be to her,

and make sure she appreciates the little remaining time they have together.
On Monday of this week, a friend's 20 year old son was killed in a horrific car crash.
It may sound insensitive, (and not intended) but they would love to have had 8 months to say goodbye to him.

[CTyankee]

7. The husband of another woman in my circle was hit by a car while out jogging.

Because of his extensive brain injuries, he never came home even tho he lived. He was in a nursing home and 3 years later died from an infection. But she was essentially a widow before she was a widow.

The sudden shock of losing a child has got to be the worst imaginable thing that could happen to you. I'm sure my friend would say the same as she has two sons...

[gkhouston]

13. Having lost a cousin suddenly and a sister slowly, I'd take "sudden"

if given a choice. Both are devastating, but when you lose someone quickly, you can remember them as they were. Watching the essence of someone being wrenched away from you, inch by inch, while they suffer and know they are losing themselves--that just about killed me, and may yet kill my mom.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. So sorry CTYankee

How long have they been married? My mom is going through this now. Hospital just released my dad today for in home hospice care. It's heart breaking to watch someone lose a husband/wife/partner they loved so much.

[CTyankee]

9. About 40 years.

So sorry about your dad. The "slipping away" of someone you love is agonizing to see. One of my widowed friends told of getting together with other recent widows and "just laughing, because we knew if we didn't laugh, we'd cry." I was in Florence with her just last September and she wanted to look for the little restaurant where she and Ron had gone one evening. She was having trouble finding it and we wandered around. Finally, she just got very distant and was just looking down the street...it was a sad moment...

[applegrove]

10. vibes.

[CTyankee]

11. thanks. lots of vibes here...I love DU for its caring community...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. So very sorry to hear about your friend's husband... I don't know it this will be of any

use, hope it may.... sending good vibes to you and your friends.

There is much more at link:

http://www.lef.org/LEFCMS/aspx/PrintVersionMagic.aspx?CmsID=117845

Brain Tumor Nutritional Protocol

>>Vitamin D remains important after birth, as it activates chemical pathways, in particular the sphingomyelin pathway, which kills glioblastoma cells (Magrassi L et al 1998). Vitamin D3, the chemical form of vitamin D made in the skin and sold as a nutritional supplement, calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D), the active form of vitamin D, and various chemical analogs and metabolites of vitamin D, have all been shown to inhibit growth and trigger apoptosis in neuroblastoma and glioma cells (Naveilhan P et al 1994, Baudet C et al 1996, Elias J et al 2003, van Ginkel PR et al 2007).<<

>>A German study compared survival times of patients with glioblastoma multiforme with their MTHFR gene variants. Those patients who were best able to convert folate into its active form survived for about 13 months. Those with the less effective MTHFR genes survived for only seven months (Linnebank M et al 2008). This suggests that supplementing with the active form of folate might be helpful.<<

>>A researcher from Tufts University described the use of vitamin E in treating glioblastoma multiforme in a 2004 article in the Journal of Nutrition. “Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and aggressive brain cancer in humans and resists all forms of therapy. Vitamin E (succinate) induces apoptosis in glioblastoma cells in a dose-related manner; we find that a 48-h exposure to 50 micromol/L vitamin E results in a 15% increase in apoptosis in the glioblastoma cells over control. Pretreatment with vitamin E may have a potential role in sensitizing glioblastoma to radiotherapy” (Borek C 2004).<<

>>Berberine slows the spread of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, decreasing motility of the tumor cells (Liu SJ et al 2008). Berberine inhibits gene expression and enzyme activity necessary for glioblastoma and astrocytoma growth (Wang DY et al 2002). It also inhibits an enzyme called arylamine N-acetyltransferase (NAT). NAT may initiate cancer and has been correlated with the carcinogenic effect of heterocyclic aromatic amines, the kind of chemicals formed when red meat is cooked (Hung CF et al 2000).<<

>>A 2006 paper reports that Boswellia serrata was gaining importance in the treatment of edema surrounding tumors and other chronic inflammatory diseases. This study suggested that boswellia might be considered as an alternative to corticosteroids in reducing cerebral peritumoral edema (Weber CC et al 2006).<<