JohnR41

My Aunt had brain cancer. It started out as breast cancer and years later it came back as brain cancer. She had an operation and they gave her cancer pills. She seemed to do quite well for a long time, perhaps many years (can't remember exactly how long it was).

The problem, as I saw it, is that she was taking too many different medications (5 or 6). So I warned her of the risk, that it could lead to liver or kidney failure. Years later it did lead to kidney failure and she started kidney dialysis. As if that wasn't enough, her brain tumor came back in a place where they couldn't remove it. Finally, she felt so ill that she just refused to go for any more dialysis. She died shortly after.

That's the bad news but it wasn't all bad. She had many good years and lived to the ripe old age of 89.

Good luck to you and your step dad.

P.S. There's a good book written by a research doctor who had the worst form of brain cancer himself. He wasn't given long to live (a year or less, as I remember it). When he wrote the book he was a survivor for 14 years.

"Anti-cancer: A new way of life" by David Servan - Schreiber, MD, PhD. Basically, what he has to offer is a, "science-based anti-cancer diet". It's not to take the place of regular cancer treatment. The purpose is to prolong the good years after treatment, to keep the cancer from coming back. And it may help to fight the cancer during treatment as well.