Hi Colleen,

My brother had a large tumor on his tongue that was diagnosed last year. He had aggressive chemo and radiation. Like your brother, the tumor shrank pretty quickly after about 2 weeks of chemo. The chemo and the radiation were very hard on him, but he is doing pretty well now.

My brother is married, but my mom ended up being his primary caregiver. She ended up getting REALLY mad at me because I asked her a lot of questions and brought up a lot of issues with her (about my brother's treatments). She told me that I was being "too cold and clinical".

It seems like you are having the same kind of feelings that I did - scared, confused and sort of mad at the caregiver and patient because they aren't getting enough information. You're right; it is frustrating. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix this. You will have to figure out some way to communicate with both of them. For me, the best thing to do was to email questions to my mom and not talk with my brother at all about his treatment (we talked about happier things!). Your best solution might be something else ... it is not an easy position to be in, but your main focus now should be making things easier for both of them.

I hope that this doesn't sound too preachy because I certainly don't mean it to be.

Jean