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>> Tonight.
>> Normally she's a very clean and neat person.
>> She wasn't able to take care of dishes.
>> Weeks and weeks of laundry were just piling up.
>> I thought I was being normal.
They discovered there was a tumor on my frontal lobe.
>> An ABC 27 special presentation.
>> I just knew something wasn't right with me, and I wasn't quite sure what it was.
This span was not normal.
There was a benign tumor close to my optic nerve, and that he felt it would be better
to do the gamma knife than to do the surgery.
>> Penn State Hershey Neuroscience Institute presents Brainstorm, brought to you by Penn
State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
>> Good evening, I'm Chuck Rhodes.
The diagnosis of a brain tumor is frightening to hear.
In 2012, an estimate of over 60,000 new cases of brain tumors will be diagnosed.
There are more than 120 types of brain tumors, and while some are cancerous, many are not.
>> Thanks, Chuck.
A Lebanon County woman's personality changed drastically.
Her two daughters and her sister knew something was happening, but they weren't sure what
it was.
They did know something had to be done immediately.
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>> This was our bus driver.
>> Yeah, he was so cute.
He took good care of us.
>> Yeah, he did.
>> Shirley Sparr and Margy Cooper reminisce about the fun times together, and there are
many.
>> I like this one.
Oh here's a picture of me.
No, is that me?
No, that's me.
>> That's you, that's you.
The only way we can tell is what we're wearing.
>> Yeah.
>> These sisters are closer than most siblings.
Shirley and Margy are identical twins.
>> We were close growing up.
We did a lot of things in school.
At one point they wanted to separate us into different classrooms, and we kind of got our
friends together and did a little boycott to the principal, and they put us back together
again.
>> A closeness they share.
A few years ago Margy noticed some big changes in her sister.
She recalls a trip to New York.
>> She was driving, and she insisted that she was in the right-hand lane in the -- on
the road.
>> She says you're on the berm of the road, and I kept insisting no, I'm in a lane.
>> And then she realized when she had to make a turnoff that she was on the shoulder of
the road.
>> Shirley's two daughters noticed changes too.
They watched their recently retired mother go from being very active to almost lifeless.
>> She just wanted to relax and unwind, but she never wanted to do the things she used
to do, like be involved, be out with her family, be out with her grandkids.
So we definitely noticed personality changes within her.
>> Watched her be unable to take care of herself.
It was certain instances where she'd just sit in her bedroom, not eat properly.
>> Normally she was a very clean and neat person, and the dishes started piling up,
and the laundry was piling up.
She just was not keeping up with the day-to-day functions of how she normally would.
>> I thought they didn't know what they were talking about.
I thought I'm normal.
>> Then what really triggered it for me was she forgot how to get to my sister's house
one day is what she told me when she was trying to -- to drive, and found that she was getting
lost while she was en route.
>> My sister and I, and got her sister involved as well, and we just like needed to get a
meeting together to -- something wasn't quite right.
>> I suggest a mental health counseling, and her daughters took over and started setting
things up.
>> We thought it was some kind of depression maybe, or Alzheimer's, we were concerned that
it could have been dementia-oriented.
We just didn’t know, and we wanted to run the tests and see what was going on with her.
>> A couple of weeks of that, visits with the psychologist, and he determined that I
wasn't depressed was what my daughters had thought I was.
>> So Shirley had an MRI.
>> With the MRI they discovered I had a tumor on my frontal lobe of my brain, and it was
called a meningioma.
>> The doctor called, and I remember I was driving to the grocery store.
And he said well in millimeters she has this -- this brain tumor.
And I would just remember being foggy, and I'm like what does that mean.
>> I remember my sister calling, and -- and telling me about the results.
And then it was a little bit of panic, and trying to figure out, you know, what does
this mean.
>> The MRI showed a fairly large tumor in the front of the brain, pushing on both sides
of the brain in the area that controls impulse control, and energy, and depression and personality.
>> For us it explained quite a bit of why she was acting like she was.
And it really, really, you know, answered a lot of questions right away.
>> I guess I really wasn't shocked as much as I thought wow, this is happening to me?
Now what do I do, you know?
Where do I go from here?
>> This tumor's big enough that simple options like radio surgery or radiation alone weren't
gonna be adequate, and she needed to have this removed.
>> Surgery was scheduled.
>> This was a standard brain tumor type operation where a piece of bone is removed from the
skull, and working around the brain, the tumor's removed.
We had a pretty good idea it was benign just from the imaging studies, and the information
we had before the surgery.
But when we removed it and sent it to the laboratory, that was confirmed.
>> When she woke up, she looked great, and I think smiling.
It actually surprised me how quickly she was out of the hospital.
She did move in with us for a few weeks.
>> Shirley's children, and her sister soon began to see the difference.
>> She recovered well, and then was well enough to come home and live by herself again.
>> She's like 100% before -- like she was before.
>> It just amazes me every day when I see her confidence, when I see her ability to
just take care of -- of those she -- those -- all those things she needs to take care
of.
You know, it's absolutely been amazing.
>> She's doing great and has her life back, and is enjoying her family and her functions
and her activities again.
And it's nice to see her happy and enjoy her life, yeah.
>> I feel healthy.
I'm told that I look healthy, I don't even look like I'm my age.
And I feel like I can handle everything that's coming to me.
I work, I manage my own self-storage business.
And I also maintain a whole house, and keep up with whatever has to be done there.
And I feel like I'm doing really well.
>> Doctor Sheehan says the tumor could have been there a number of years, and over time
it gradually affected Shirley's personality.
Back to you, Chuck.
>> Thank you, Debra.
She looks great, you know, what a great attitude.
And joining us now on the set is the neurosurgeon you saw in the report, Doctor Jonas Sheehan.
Doctor, how common is this type of tumor, that meningioma?
>> Meningioma?
>> Meningioma.
>> It's fairly common in terms of brain tumors, about 1 in 10,000 people has a meningioma.
A lot of people don't know they have it, they're not a problem.
But it is a common type of tumor as far as brain tumors go.
>> Now at the beginning of the show I mentioned there were 120 types of brain tumors.
Let's start with the basics.
What is a brain tumor?
I think maybe a lot of people aren't sure what that is.
>> Right.
Well a tumor just means a lump, a growth.
And brain tumors are groups of cells in the brain that have lost the ability to know when
not to grow.
So they grow in an uncontrolled fashion.
Some grow slowly, and those are called benign tumors, and some grow more quickly, and those
are referred to as malignant tumors.
>> Now with all the research that's been going on for so many years, have they found a possible
cause for brain tumors?
>> Sure.
>> Is there a set cause?
>> Well, the majority of brain tumors actually come from cancer in other places in the body.
So we understand a little bit about those.
The tumors that begin right in the brain, we know some are related to particular chromosomal
abnormalities, but in general they cause for reasons -- they're caused by reasons we don't
really understand, and therefore can't really prevent.
>> Is there any red flag somebody should be watching for, or symptoms that you could say
uh-oh, I better check this out.
>> Well, the majority of patients with a brain tumor don't have any symptoms.
We find most of them now incidentally when people have a CAT scan or an MRI for an unrelated
reason.
Patients with brain tumors can present with symptoms like a headache, personality or behavior
changes, weakness or numbness in one side of the body.
Any sort of neurological alteration can be attributed to a brain tumor.
>> A whole bunch there.
Well, we have a lot more to come, but we're gonna check back in with Debra in the ABC
27 call center.
Debra?
>> Hi Chuck.
The phone lines are very busy here this evening.
We're getting all different kinds of calls about brain tumors, we're getting calls about
using the gamma knife, we're getting calls about teenagers having brain tumors.
The number to call is 346-3333, or you can e-mail your questions to questions@abc27.com.
Now here to answer our viewer questions is Doctor Jim McInerney.
Thanks for being here.
>> Thank you.
>> Here's the first viewer question.
In 1998 my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor, but because of the location of the
tumor the doctors could not do surgery.
Have there been any advances in surgical techniques that will now allow surgeons to remove tumors
that could not be removed in the past?
>> Well sure, that's a great question.
And, you know, every year our technology not only improves, but our ability to use that
technology improves.
And so our ability to see things, to image things, and then also to be able to treat
them not only with surgery, but with radiation, with the gamma knife, you know, improves constantly.
And so certainly somebody who was evaluated 12 years ago should probably be re-evaluated
again to see what we can do today.
>> Okay great, thanks so much.
And we will have more viewer questions.
Stay tuned.