Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 2/11/2008

Question
mymy question is this, my wife has just had a tumor removed from her brain, it was from her breast cancer they have told me. and she had alot of radition treatments afterwards.now after all of this she is still not doing to well with talking or even thinking to clearly. is this a common thing? her doctor, has said she will be ok?, is this true?, i dont like to be miss lead. i have asked him if she is going to die and all he says is " well not at this time i dont see nothing on her foot taht says she is going to die next month or nothing that says she will live", this is very frustrating.so what can i do?, i am blind and it is very hard to tell if she is hurting by just looking at her. so i have to touch her and fill her  if she is shaking or what ever.she cannot talk to good, and she cannot even think of what she wants to say at times. this is so sad. i want a straight answer is all so i can be prepared for her to die, or what ever is going to happen is all. this is not good i no, from what i have gotten off of the internet, but there must be some one who can say there nothing we can do and she will live for this amount of time or less. please help me with this please.....i need to be ready, for what ever may happen is all.........

Answer
I'm sorry for both you and her! This situation is not nice. Since her breast cancer has spread to her brain she is now a stage 4 breast cancer case and unfortunately no longer curable at present! As a stage 4 case she also have a bad prognosis. How long she will be able to survive is however impossible for me to tell since I do not have enough information. But the situation does not look good even though probably no change is just around the corner. It may be possible to control her illness to some extent with various methods but I can not promise that or tell how long it will last if it happens.  I'm sorry I have nothing better to tell you!