Week 1 of Combined Chemo / Proton Radiation Complete

Rickyr1219

I've completed week 1 of planned 5 1/2 weeks of combined Chemo / Proton Radiation Treatment. Treatment plan is 1000 mg Xeloda Morning and Evening Monday thru Friday with Proton Radiation Each day. I also have an IV Drip of Benadryl / Steroid and Docetaxol each Monday. No noticeable effects yet and I wonder if this is just the calm before the storm.

I'm at MD Anderson in Houston and I've talked with Thoracic Surgeon about MIE surgery. He said he does not do it but would recommend me to a Dr thatChemo does if that's the way I decide to go. I then talked with my Medical Oncologist and he said they have had issues with MIE by what almost sounded like an experience issue of the surgeons here doing MIE. I am taking Williams advise though and getting second opinions before I agree to the Open Surgery.

Ricky
T3N1MO June 2012
Chemo / Proton Therapy 8-6-12

Freida

Hi Ricky
Congrats on
Hi Ricky
Congrats on completing week one. I wonder if we crossed paths this week at the proton therapy center. Bill did not have proton therapy but Dr Cox from the proton therapy center was his radiation oncologist and we had an appointment with him this week (Bill's 1st 3 month check up which went well).

Your chemo protocol sounds slightly different to Bills, perhaps because he was not a good surgery candidate. He had 2 months induction chemo (biweekly taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 48 hour pump, then 6 weeks of taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 5 day pump concurrent with radiation). He had no problems at all with the first 2 months of chemo. He did have problems with mouth sores which was related to the 5FU.

Good luck with your treatments.

Bermudagirl

Freida said:

Hi Ricky
Congrats on
Hi Ricky
Congrats on completing week one. I wonder if we crossed paths this week at the proton therapy center. Bill did not have proton therapy but Dr Cox from the proton therapy center was his radiation oncologist and we had an appointment with him this week (Bill's 1st 3 month check up which went well).

Your chemo protocol sounds slightly different to Bills, perhaps because he was not a good surgery candidate. He had 2 months induction chemo (biweekly taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 48 hour pump, then 6 weeks of taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 5 day pump concurrent with radiation). He had no problems at all with the first 2 months of chemo. He did have problems with mouth sores which was related to the 5FU.

Good luck with your treatments.

Congrats on one week down!
Glad that you are tolerating the treatments well so far. Dave is 3 weeks and 4 days into his 5 week treatment plan, but whose counting?! The first 2 weeks were fairly smooth, this past week has been tougher. He's on a continous infusion of 5fu, oxaliplatin every other Thursday, and of course daily radiation. He decided on the THE surgery, which is set for October 8th at Hopkins.

He's still eating fairly well at this stage, but is complaining of mouth sores and of course fatigue. He hasn't lost that much weight, but I have a feeling the next week and a half could be challengeing with eating, but we shall see. He's doing well on soups, milkshakes and slurpees.

Continued good luck to you! And as far as the MIE goes, definitely get a second opinion. There are pros and cons to both types of surgery. We ultimately decided to go the open route, but William is proof positive that the MIE is great.

Josie60

Freida said:

Hi Ricky
Congrats on
Hi Ricky
Congrats on completing week one. I wonder if we crossed paths this week at the proton therapy center. Bill did not have proton therapy but Dr Cox from the proton therapy center was his radiation oncologist and we had an appointment with him this week (Bill's 1st 3 month check up which went well).

Your chemo protocol sounds slightly different to Bills, perhaps because he was not a good surgery candidate. He had 2 months induction chemo (biweekly taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 48 hour pump, then 6 weeks of taxol and carboplatin plus 5FU by 5 day pump concurrent with radiation). He had no problems at all with the first 2 months of chemo. He did have problems with mouth sores which was related to the 5FU.

Good luck with your treatments.

Congrats on one week finished
I had "traditional" radiation for 5 weeks, along with taxol / carboplatin chemo weekly for 6 weeks. My experience was not to bad until the last 2weeks when the radiation made the esophagus extremely sore and made eating almost impossible so I had a nasal feeding tube inserted. Hopefully your experience will be better with the proton radiation.

On the up side my treatments had the desired effect and the pathology on the tissue and lymph nodes after my surgery in June indicated the cancer cells were all dead. So now we wait for the first PET scan post surgery to see what we have.