Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 4/4/2010

Question
My son was 25. He died in this past January. He went to the local ER to get a cat scan as he was having headaches for a couple weeks. When he woke up he would take a couple pills and go to work.... he woke up this one morning and had a upset stomach. Other than that, no issues at all... My wife is a nurse and told him not to make a doctors appt, just go to ER as the family doctor would want to have a scan of his synices. He went there, the scan showed a mass in his brain... within in a hour or so he began to get a worse headache, then administered meds as he had to wait for a bed to open at the main hospital that was about 20 minutes away. He began to have muscle spasms and I feel was brain dead within 3 hours of finding out about the tumor. How is this possible? Could the meds they gave him cause the additional pressure that caused the tumor to explode?

Answer
I'm sorry for your loss! This is a coincidence. The fact that he had stomach problems (nausea, vomiting too?) not just head aches any more shows that his case was quite advanced. If possible he should have had his head aches checked earlier, but it would probably not have changed the outcome since malignant brain tumors (which most probably this was an example of) usually have a very bad prognosis regardless of treatment. They often do not give any symptoms until it is far too late.



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