Need advice for my grandma

sanbar8771

Hello,

 I am not sure where to post this but I need some advice. My husbands grandma had breast cancer stage 2, 30 years ago. She had a MX and radiation. I think about 10 or so years later she had ovarian cancer. They gave her radiation again in some form of bebe in the abdomen. She is now 82 years old and was recently hospitalized for a pain in her back. Pretty much she cant walk. The doctors did a bunch of tests and she has a tumor in the bone in her spine. She also has 2 fractured bones in the spine as well. The doctors want her to do a biopsy to rule out bone mets but she does not want to go through the surgery. She just wants to try and heal from the fracture and try and walk again just to finish out her life. Maybe this is a dumb question but would it benefit her at all to go through the biopsy just to find out that she has mets (or not mets)? She has already said she does not want to go through any more radiation or chemo but she wants to try and walk again. At her age, is there a chance she can walk again if it is not bone mets? Thanks for listening.

Julie

dlb823

I'm so sorry about your husband's Grandma, Julie.  I think there are two key issues -- respecting what his Grandma wants, and also being sure her doctors have a lot of experience treating women her age with similar dx's.  Unless she's in amazing health otherwise, and unless she wants it (which it doesn't sound like she does), I doubt any doctor would RX chemo for her.  So knowing what type of tumor she has in her spine may be a moot issue.  RT, OTOH, might give her some pain relief.  I'm not a doctor, but I would think whether or not she can even tolerate that would depend a lot on how good her bones are.  So, all in all, I think she really needs a med team that sees a sufficient number of octogenarians with this sort of tumor for a thorough evaluation and recommendations re. her options.  

Good luck to her, and please keep let us know what kind happens.  I'll pray that they can treat her and get her walking again.     (((Hugs)))   Deanna