My loved one's shrinking brain

by Actual News Geezer | November 30, 2006 at 08:31 am

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This started out as a fairly simple story. Researchers in Japan have discovered that chemotherapy might have serious, if impermanent, impacts on the brain.

I put the story up because my wife has cancer, and I wanted others to see the research. I also went out on the web and asked people to donate photos of their chemo experiences. What came back was simply magic - a kind of digital quilt of the poignant varieties of human experience in those who face cancer courageously.

To see this marvel, watch this slide show. If your heart does not swell with love, watch it again.

If you click on any of the images above, you'll see contributions from people who generously responded to my request for their images...it's a kind of "quilt of concern." We have also heard back from many folks with their own stories about "chemo brain" - a phenomenon not much discussed but widely experienced. Please consider adding your photo and help spread the word about this new research.

My lovely, smart wife has breast cancer, and for the last little while, she has been complaining about "chemo brain." I always said, Nah, you're just getting old. She would smile, knowing that my sense of humor is congenitally defective.

But a couple of weeks ago, she forgot something completely uncharacteristic of her, and I said, Maybe it's chemo brain? and she didn't smile.

Now, this report from a Japanese team of neurological researchers confirms something that cancer patients have always suspected, but healthcare professionals never talk about.

I offer this story to promote knowledge on the part of cancer patients and their loved ones, and to my lovely, smart wife.

Chemotherapy promotes a short-term, but apparently reversible, shrinkage of key brain areas, new research shows.

These changes could explain the impairment of thinking, memory, and focus that many cancer patients complain of after treatment, a Japanese research team has found.

The changes are marked by a temporary dimunition of certain brain areas that help people concentrate, plan, problem-solve, execute, and remember. This shrinkage can bring on a general cognitive malaise often called "chemo-brain."

However, these reductions in brain matter were no longer evident three and four years after chemotherapy, the Japanese team reported Monday in the online edition of Cancer.

I can attest to the validity of the condition called 'Chemo Brain". It is alive and real. There are many forgotten thoughts, your memory is almost nonexistenet, and trying to focus on a project or work in general is such a mental strain because you have a short focus span. If you try to work or function someway in society, it is not only difficult but also embarrassing.

There is good news to all this, its been 15 months since my last chemo treatment and the focus is slowly getting better. I will still forget something but it has been coming back to me and it seems like each time it happens, it is quicker,

One of the hardest adjustments for me since the beginning of my diagnosis, is to learn to look to the future in larger chunks of time. I am a day-to-day, week-to-week-person and cancer is a long process.

Thank you for putting this out here for others who may be in the same of similar situation as you are.

Send my best to your wife and take care of yourself as well.

Linda Bowman

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