Round Three and Going Forward

Yesterday was the start of round three of chemo. Round three was delayed one week due to Thanksgiving holiday. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

So yesterday, I got a 3-hour infusion of Taxol, today a dosage of Cisplatin, and now I'm wearing the portable pump for the 5-FU, with the pump staying next to me for the next 5 days, the same as the first two rounds. I'm a bit excited since this will be the last time I'll have to wear the portable pump. I won't miss it one bit.

Going into IMRT radiation treatments (8 weeks, 39 sessions), which is tentatively scheduled to start on the week of Christmas, I'll only be getting one chemo drug, Carboplatin. Originally, I thought I would get only 3 rounds of Carboplatin spaced 3 weeks apart like the first 3 rounds of my induction chemo treatment, but instead, I'll be getting a lower dosage once a week. That means 8 weeks of radiation combined with 8 more rounds of chemo!

My oncologist wants to see how well my tumors have responded to the chemo so she scheduled a MRI for later this month. For IMRT, I'll go in next week to have a mask made for my head and neck, tattoos will be placed on my neck for aligning the lasers, and using all the data, the radiation oncologist and medical physicists will take one week to run simulations before I'll be the actual genuine pig.

I've read and heard the first two weeks of radiation may not be all that bad. But after that, things might be hell inside the throat especially. I found some inspiration from last week's Top Chef episode where the celeribity guest was diagnosed with tongue cancer. His treatment plan is very similar to mine. Check out this article (http://www.mensvogue.com/food/articles/2008/05/grantachatz?currentPage=1).