is it working?

omrhill
omrhill Member Posts: 125
in Colorectal Cancer #1
How do i know its working? I finish 5FU this week then wait 6 weeks for follow up exam with surgeon then 2 more weeks til surgery. I have done really well on chemo/radiation - just diarrhea and burn pain (ouch!) And im really tired. But thats it. I worry that "its not working because im not sick enough." Is that warped or what? But seriously, for stage 3 rectal does the first round of radiation and chemo ever NOT work? Is there anything i can be doing now to check to see if its working? My friends tell me im worrying needlesslly. Am i the only one?

As always, thanks....

Robin

Comments

  • steveandnat
    steveandnat Member Posts: 886
    #2
    sounds good to me
    If you are pretty good health to start with you may not have too bad a reaction. Only time will tell when they check things out. Praying all is good. Jeff
  • tanstaafl
    tanstaafl Member Posts: 1,313 Member
    #3
    normal + potential extras
    You are on a largely fixed program, as long as nothing disrupts it.

    With stage III, a big concern will be to avoid metastasis associated with surgery due to immune suppression. Many readers on these forums with advanced CRC have stated that they wished they had only known about perioperative cimetidine in time. see LEF.org on CRC protocols, and Matsumoto (2002).

    My wife is stage IV, had a large cluster of unresected periaortic lymph nodes for 13+ months as well as mesenteric invasion, and still didn't metastasize, to the amazement of many doctors. We did add other things too, but cimetidine, PSK and high vitamin D3 were high on the list preoperatively. Your doctors' ok for high dose cimetidine for rectal might be best right before surgery to maximize therapeutic radiation effects between radiotherapy and surgery.
  • annalexandria
    annalexandria Member Posts: 2,571 Member
    #4
    I'm not sure of the details
    regarding the efficacy of the chemo you had, but I can reassure you that severity of side effects does not correlate with efficacy, at least it didn't in my case. I got tremendously sick on FOLFOX, more so than the average patient, and had significant cancer progression while on it. So I would just assume the chemo did its job, and that you were fortunate to have gotten through it with limited suffering. Congratulations! Ann
    PS Would second tanstafl on the cimetidine for surgery. I used it before and after my last surgery and finally got my first clean scan in three years. May not be connected, but it's a "can't hurt" kind of thing to try.

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