Published 28 July 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2886
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2886

Practice

A Patient’s Journey

Living with a benign brain tumour

Anne McDonald, retired GP 1

1 Romford

Correspondence to: Anne McDonald somerledmcd@btinternet.com

After surgical removal of a benign brain tumour, Dr Anne McDonald suffered residual neurological defects that led to her retirement. She has found the symptoms and their effects difficult to come to terms with

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"You have a tumour in the fourth ventricle." Shock. Sudden scrabbling in the memory for anything I learnt at medical school about neuroanatomy—that was over 30 years ago! I realised two things: first, the doctor was doing his utmost not to call it a brain tumour, and, second, he was watching me with trepidation to see if I would burst into tears. "I will refer you urgently to the neurosurgeons."

From my symptoms I had already self diagnosed an acoustic neuroma, and had little idea about the implications of this new diagnosis, except that it was a brain tumour! My immediate thoughts were of the last patient I had looked after with a similar diagnosis. He was dead within six months; it had been like an immediate death sentence. So how long did I have? Would I see either of my sons graduate? What would my husband do? This crystallisation . . . [Full text of this article]


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