Talk about your worst nightmare. Sheryl Crow had an MRI because she was forgetting things and doctors discovered she has a brain tumor. Thankfully it is benign so doctors don't have to operate, but still, a tumor in your brain? And she has two young boys and it would be awful if something happened to her. She says that she is fine and found out about it in November. I don't think I would be able to get beyond the doctors coming in and telling me I had a tumor on my brain before I passed out. I would never hear the benign part until I woke up. Which part of that news do you say first?
Well, she has certainly had her share of health problems. I am glad to hear it is benign.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you say? How about 'I have good news and I have bad news. Let's talk about the good news first.'
ReplyDeleteWhat Ms. Cool said.
ReplyDeleteI like her music.
What surfer said. I imagine it will still require some type of radiation treatment or something to shrink it so the pressure doesn't continue causing memory problems.
ReplyDeleteShe looks great in that picture. It is quite refreshing to see someone aging with a little dignity. IDK if she's had work done, but if she has it was subtle and flattering.
ReplyDeleteWhat Angel said. You can say it's non-cancerous, and thank God, but it's not exactly "benign" if it's already causing memory problems. What will happen as it grows?
ReplyDelete@Frufra, agreed. Lately, most famous people over 45 are getting too disturbing to look at.
ReplyDeleteLove her! Wish her the best.
ReplyDeleteHi anita - how's your mom? Is she excited about the upcoming all-star cast of Dancing With the Stars? I know my mom is :-). Glad to see you made it through your all day mall excursion with her a few weeks back!
ReplyDeleteMeningioma is the most common primary brain tumor in women, starting around her age. It's also, in most cases, completely survivable with no lingering effects. Good for her for having it checked out. I'd urge any woman of middle age or greater who is having any ongoing memory or cognition problems, no matter how slight, to do as she did and that MRI.
ReplyDeleteI like her too. Hope everything turns out great for her.
ReplyDeleteIf this is a meningioma, her memory issues are coming from something else.
ReplyDeleteAs the others said...it may not be cancer but if it grows it will cause another set of problems.
ReplyDelete"Thankfully it is benign so doctors don't have to operate..."
ReplyDeleteUmmm, what? Just because it's benign it doesn't mean doctors just leave it in there. Tumors grow, and the more they grow the more they push against your healthy brain tissue or your brain stem or option nerve, etc., leading to more problems. I had a benign brain tumor the size of a water balloon and there wasn't even a question as to whether I should have it removed. Once I found out, the doctors told me I should wait more than a couple months to have brain surgery and remove it, so that's exactly what I did. They removed it all and I went through physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy for two months. That was a few years ago and I'm pretty much 100% back to normal. I was lucky.
Sorry, there's just no way they let it sit there. Hopefully it's in a spot that makes it operable (sometimes placement of a tumor makes it inoperable because they could damage certain parts of your brain by going in), and at that point she'll have surgery and have as much of it removed as possible. If most of it cannot be removed, they'll use radiation to shrink the rest.
The doctors told me I should *no* more than a couple months...
ReplyDeleteAt middle age it's hard to tell if it's menopause or a brain tumor!
ReplyDeleteListen to me please. I have a feeling that Sheryl Crow leads the slightly healthier California version of the disgusting unhealthy American diet that leads to disease, supporting big pharma. Look at everyone you know that had cancer and beat it. Then it came back and maybe they beat it again. And again? Chemo leaves your body so depleted of it's immune system that you are more prone to disease. I have had low dose chemo to treat an autoimmune disease and I could barely function so I am terrified of cancer because I don't know an alternative to chemo besides throwing myself at my naturopaths mercy. What I do know is prevention. Don't be a lazy American eating processed foods. Eat raw food like a salad at least once a day, as much organic as possible and look at low cost ways to do it. I'm finding more organic at my local warehouse club. I just read that the amount of American infant deaths is DOUBLE the amount of murders. We need to stop being a lazy nation and take responsibility. I hope Sheryl's ok but everyone needs to examine why so many people are getting cancer.
ReplyDeleteAnd why no President has ever died of cancer.
DeleteInteresting!! B
DeleteVery interesting....bet their cars all get 100 miles per gallon also. Bastards!
DeleteJust because it's benign doesn't mean anything. I personally know 2 people who died from benign brain tumors. By the time they were caught they had grown too big - One person, my dad's best friend, had a meningioma but when they tried to operate, it was basically they opened and closed him. It was too late. If it were me, I'd want something done.
ReplyDeleteGod she looks amaaaaazing for 50! I was shocked when I saw how old she is. I hope she'll be okay, I've always liked her music.
ReplyDeleteI have a cousin who has been fighting this type of tumor for over 20 years. Yes, it is benign, but it has been horrible. She has had to have repeated surgeries to reduce its growth, and the medications have wreaked havoc with her body.
ReplyDeleteI wish Sheryl Crow the best and hope she has a less virulent strain.
Depending on the size and location it can be left alone. I have 3 on my brain. One is very small in the center of my brain, one is very close to my left eardrum and has affected my hearing somewhat, and the largest is on my right side. I got diagnosed with them 4 years ago and my neuro doc said as long as they stay the same size I'm ok. While I do suffer horrible migraines and other symptoms I've come to deal with it. I also have a condition called dystonia and my doc has said even though the cause is not known, they could be connected.
ReplyDelete@bobbi--Has your doctor advised you to NOT have surgery, or did they give you a choice and you opted not to.
ReplyDeleteHe said that as long as they do not grow in size that the risks and recovery from surguery outweighed the benefits. I had a second opinion a while back and the other dr agreed with the first. I have MRI done once a year to make sure there is no change in them. Oddly enough I had another tumor pop up on my colon that I had to have removed a year ago. Thankfully it was benign also, but it took a surgeon 7 months to get to that conclusion. By the time he finally operated, it had moved to my Fallopian tube and actually broke it cause it was so big. To tell the truth I was more scared about that one compared to the few on my brain that I still have.
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ReplyDeleteHi Frufra, I saw my mom on Sunday but my brother's two little girls were there so I essentially don't exist. Your mom have any good grocery store stories? As for our shopping trip (good memory), it wasn't too bad. My husband needed a nap so my mom and I had a few drinks in her room so when we finally went for dinner, her and I were a wee bit tanked.
ReplyDeleteslightly off topic - I've read that malignant brain tumors often show up a few years after chemo for a particular type of fast-spreading breast cancer, because the cells migrate to the brain but the chemo doesn't pass the brain barrier. Scary.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, I'm with Enty....just hearing I had something new growing in my head, benign or not would freak me out.
ReplyDeleteSheryl seems like a really good person and I hope for her sake and her kids that she comes through this ok--she certainly has a good attitude about it so far and that helps.
I got a concussion once and had to get an MRI. I was just glad it confirmed I had a brain!!! (Nothing was wrong. Apparently.) After having to go through cancer diagnoses of the worst kind with my mom and sister (at every turn it wasn't just a bad case scenario but the worst case scenario and they both died), if a doctor said I had any kind of BENIGN cancer, I would throw a party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteanita, I know how you feel about sharing the room with kids. Hubby and I used to joke that we could just drive by and toss the kids out, and they wouldn't even notice.
ReplyDeleteSo jealous that your mom imbibes a little - my parents are teetotalers of the biggest order, and it is excruciating. You've never met two people who needed a drink more. Hubs and I did resort to a little sneak-drinking to get through this last holiday season. Yup. Sneak drinking at 40. So sad :-).
bummer
ReplyDeleteI know when you beat any cancer,
ReplyDelete(hit the 5 year mark) you do have to worry about cancer popping up elsewhere. It might not be labled the cancer you first had and beat (like me, kidney, will hit 4 years cancer free this August). They can biopsy it and it can be traced back to the orginial cancer, but labled a new cancer
(me, orginial kidney, god forbid it comes back as "bone" cancer but stems from the kidney cancer)
It is a scary thing to know you have beaten it, but you always have to look over your shoulder and wonder.. most cancers another danger zone can pop up 15-20 years later..
*sigh* you can be in the clear, but never fully in the clear.
I am thankful hers is benign, but sadly the brain is where a lot of times it can pop up.
I like Sheryl, so of course I wish her well.
ReplyDeleteI had brain surgery and it was not my first choice but my last option for a totally different condition. It's not something you go into lightly if you have another choice.
This poor woman. She's had so much thrown at her through the years...though amazing things too. I love her and her music. So talented. I saw her perform and she was awesome.
ReplyDeleteshe seems like a trooper, so good for her! btw, that pic of her is lovely...and i'd so love to go to the dentist that did her teeth whitening...gorgeous! she looks fantastic!
ReplyDeleteWhat do doctors say? First, they hint. "Have you been having unusual headaches?" You acknowledge that you have, but it's stress, right? Then they say words you do not understand. "You have a meningioma in the triangular (whatever) (whatever) cortex (something)." And then it's up to you, with the room now spinning and your heart now going 200 beats per minute, to gather enough thoughts to ask what the what they mean. It's like they think everyone knows detailed anatomy without going to medical school. I wish they had someone gifted in doctor-to-real person translation sit in on the "bad news" because even in answering questions that clearly are asked because the patient has NO IDEA what these words mean, they continue to use medical lingo that tells us nothing. Sometimes I feel like the lawyer in the movie Philadelphia when talking to doctors, and I just say, "Tell it to me like I am a 3 year old!"
ReplyDeleteI know two people who have had benign brain lesions, one with the best possible outcome, one with the worst. Best wishes to Sheryl.
ReplyDeleteBoth my Mother and Uncle had cancer and despite trying everything in the way of treatment at that time, ending up dieing of it. They both were also avid walkers, over 5 miles a day. I mean everyday. They also were very strict about what they ate. Vegetables and fruits, very very little meat and then mostly fish and no red meat. People that take excellent care of themselves get cancer. It is NOT only people who eat crap diets. My mother's Dr. called to talk to her one day and I had to tell him that she was on her walk and he would have to call back. He was flabbergasted that she was walking 5 miles, as the cancer was in her bones and liver. He could not believe that she was not taking anything for pain and so physically active. Cancer does not just pick on people who are lazy and eat the wrong things. Cancer happens to anyone even newborns. It is an unforgiving horrible family destroying thing and to blame the person that has it, saying that they caused it. I will give you some that are directly related to behavior, but get real. What physically active, eating right, nice person should have to suffer from it. People use to say this about AIDS "They got what they deserved". I thought we were long past that kind of thinking. Off the soap box.
ReplyDeleteWell said, old ;ady!
ReplyDeleteHere here! Anither example: my husbands aunt. She had heart trouble. She was right sweight, only ever ate fruits, veggies and baked chicken, walked everywhere, but sti passed away from heart attack. It sure doesnt seem fair tho.
ReplyDeleteAmen!!!! When i was growing up my friends mom died of breast cancer at 34. She ran marathons, did yoga daily, was vegan and never smoke or drank.
ReplyDeleteCancer can kill anyone, not just us lazy stupid Americans katsm.
I learned the words malignant and benign when I was twelve (father/brain tumor/yes, malignant) and I have that gut reaction to "malignant" still, especially regarding brain tumors, so I can understand both the horror over being told you have a brain tumor, even a benign one, but also marginal relief at being told it's benign. I know someone who died of a rather slow-growing benign one, so I know they're still dangerous, but it still ups your odds of survival tremendously.
ReplyDeleteI hope she's got it in her to fight and win this battle, too.
I had a cancer scare..so to feel better i convinced myself that I would have to get reconstructive surgery...and I had already decided on D cups....haaaaa...I was a bit crestfallen when I found out It was a false positive.
ReplyDeleteHow the fuck can any tumor be "benign?" That just seems like an oxymoron! What's benign about it? I hate that disease. And all the others, too!
ReplyDeleteAnongkhla I too learned those words, at 18 and lost my dad less than 12 months later. After 18 years, any headache that I get scares me :(. I hope Sheryl is ok
ReplyDeleteI had vaguely heard that dental X-rays increase the chance of brain tumors like this developing. Well, I wish I hadn't googled it just now to double check. :( it says that those panoramic X-rays done for braces *quintuple* the chance for meningiomas if they are done before the age of 10. My daughter had it done when she was about 8 years old. :((
ReplyDeleteSodaliri, even minor twinges make me nervous. And mixing up names (one of my dad's first symptoms.) You can tell yourself a million times that it doesn't run in families like other forms of cancer, but it never really sinks in.
ReplyDeleteBrain cancer is not a good way to go, and that is a fact.
She's had a hell of a time with her health problems. :-(
ReplyDelete