Chemo, day one

Day one was not very eventful.  Thank goodness.

Gemzar and cisplatin.  I had cisplatin two years ago during induction chemo before my first radiation treatment so I know a bit of what to expect in terms of side effects.  The Gemzar is new to me.

I didn't know how many cycles my medical oncologist had planned until today when I bumped into her at the infusion center before the start of chemo infusion.  She said to plan for four cycles.

One cycle is one month.  I get chemo weeks 1, 2, and 3.  Week 4 is a rest week.  Weeks 1 and 2, I get gemzar and cisplatin.  Week 3, only gemzar.

The gemzar infusion takes only 30 minutes IF it doesn't burn your vein in your arm when it goes in.  Of course, for me, it burned like heck so my nurse slowed down the infusion.  That helped a bit.

The cisplatin infusion takes 3+ hours and requires that I keep going to the bathroom to empty my bladder.

Joy.

Nick Narcisse

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/hso/7206781.html

CyberKnife treatment plan, right neck

September 2010

Chemo

CyberKnife went well.  The right side of my mouth is a bit raw.  Chewing and eating have been difficult for the last few days, but I won't complain too much.  CyberKnife is amazing technology.

We will be moving forward with chemo.  This was possibly the hardest decision of my life since we don't have any data to suggest we absolutely need chemo.  But that 1 possibility out of 100 or 1000 is enough for me.

The protocol my oncologist emailed to me is identical to this study:
http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/8/1252.abstract

Every 28 days: gemcitabine (gemzar) on days 1,  8, and 15;  cisplatin, days 1 and 8.

Today, we officially made it to 2 years.