chemo and rads

a1phil
a1phil Member Posts: 29
in Esophageal Cancer #1
Now I need to decide where bto get my chemo. U of M is an hour away I live in jackson mi They have a new cancer center and it is only 10 min away.Can I trust a local hospital???

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  • JReed
    JReed Member Posts: 428
    #2
    Cancer center in Jackson
    We were thinking that the Cancer Center in Jackson is where Don would go for his chemo and radiation treatments due to that fact it is a satellite type office of UofM and we wanted to be sure we had the best.

    Dr. Reddy explained to us that the chemo and radiation could be done much closer to home. We would have been more than happy to go to Ann Arbor daily or Jackson, but then he knew the chemo onc at West Michigan Cancer Center in Kalamazoo which is even closer to home for us.

    From talking to others with various types of cancer - to have treatment closer to home is so much more convenient - especially if you getting radiation treatments every day. Looking back - I'm glad we chose to do treatment closer to home - some days Don was just so tired and it was good that we were only a half an hour away from home so he could nap and relax and not be on the road for 2-3 hours each day.

    We have a friend who has brain cancer (he lives in Marshall) and he travels to Duke Univ to see and meet with the doctors but he goes to WMCC in Kzoo for radiation and chemo.

    Of course you will want to get going on the treatment - but perhaps you could meet with the radiation oncologist and chemo oncologist in Jackson and see what kind of feel you get from them and make your decision at that time. It does take time to get 'tattooed' and have the measurements taken for radiation - that can take a few days to get that done before radiation treatment starts. Also - have you talked about having a port put in for the chemo (they can also do blood draws through this) - that is done on an outpatient basis and our chemo onc set that up. From the time you meet with the oncologists (wherever you decide to have treatment) - it may take about a week to actually get going on treatment (it took longer in our case - but I believe that was due to the holidays).

    Let us know if you'd like to talk with Don and we can private message you his phone number. Best wishes and lots of mojo to you for treatment - it's rough but very doable.

    Judy & Don

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