by Elizabeth
My big brother, John, was diagnosed with a GBM on January 14, 2009. We should've known something was wrong, but he was single and lived alone.
Looking back there were signs that we missed. John was forced into early retirement two years earlier. Was he having problems performing his job? We'll never know. The summer before his diagnosis he was running, golfing, and thinking of moving closer to where my mom lives. He would come over to my her house several times a week to help her. We should've known something was wrong, but he was single and lived alone. Around Halloween he thought he had the flu. He was dizzy and nauseated for several days. For weeks he kept complaining of getting a tingling sensation up and down his body along with episodes of dizziness and nausea. John saw his internist three different times before he was finally diagnosed. At his last visit his doctor suggested that he wear a Holter Monitor to see if he was having heart problems. We should've known that something was wrong, but he was single and lived alone.
He called me from my mom's house on Friday and said he was having trouble reading words. On Saturday, he couldn't make sense of the morning paper and called his doctor who advised him to have someone drive him to the closest ER. I met my sister at the ER just as John was being examined. A CT scan showed a tumor in the left temporal lobe. We should've known that something was wrong, but he was single and lived alone.
John had surgery four days later, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. Cognitively, he was never the same. None of us were ever the same. He had his first recurrence six months later. Three months later, another recurrence. His oncologist was always so positive, trying something old, something new, we'll fix you. John lost the fight of his life on April 1, 2010. We should've known that something was wrong, but he was single and lived alone.
