Change in character even after successful meningioma surgery.
Good day,
My sister had a fairly large meningioma, which was completely surgically removed on 01.12.2015 (see attachment). The whole thing was discovered through a collapse, apparently triggered by epileptic seizures. We were told that these seizures were probably caused by the tumor.
In the days before the surgery, my sister had various delusions (she thought she was dead, she had disappeared into a parallel reality, and so on), she was so restless that she had to be restrained most of the time in the intensive care unit.
After the surgery, things improved somewhat, probably also due to the anti-epileptic medications she has been taking until today. We thought the worst was over, now it was just a matter of recovering and regaining strength. That's why she went to rehab (where she is currently), but unfortunately, it is completely useless. Due to the pre-Christmas time, almost nothing is as it should be, she is hardly receiving any psychological support, and apparently no tests (EEG or similar) are being done.
The main problem, however, is that during our regular phone calls with her, we increasingly realize that she is apparently far from being healthy. She is doing various things that are very uncharacteristic of her, she seems to be in a manic state combined with a kind of delusion of impoverishment. She is collecting money for refugees in the clinic in a rather shameless way and harassing the other patients, who then complain. She is making life-changing decisions for her children and her family that do not align with what she would do based on her healthy personality. She is not rational, she regularly bursts into tears during conversations and discussions and hangs up the phone. All very uncharacteristic things for her.
The problem is: from the outside, all of this is very difficult to recognize, because she appears completely clear, seemingly without cognitive deficits, just a bit difficult.
The husband (whose workplace is 300km away) was fortunately able to stay at home the whole time, manage everything, and take care of the children. However, he will have to go back to work in the new year, and we are still completely undecided whether it is justifiable to leave my sister unsupervised in everyday life again.
After the long backstory, now to my question or rather two sub-questions:
a) What could be the cause of such a change in behavior? Does it just take time for the effects of the tumor to regress, even though it was removed? Could these be consequences of the epileptic seizures? Could it be a psychological consequence of the trauma she experienced? Could there be something else behind it?
b) How should we deal with this? Should we bring this up at the first outpatient neurologist appointment in January? Should this be discussed in the presence of the patient or privately? Is this normal, i.e., does a neurologist usually investigate such things anyway?
I know you can't make a diagnosis or anything like that. But all the doctors we have dealt with so far did not prepare us in any way for something like this to happen. They were only interested in the surgery, we did not receive any more information from any side, probably due to time constraints.
In my internet research, I found this page here, and I would appreciate your assessment of what might be the case based on your experience and what approach you would recommend.
Thank you in advance!
Best regards
