Chemo for Life - how many on this site?

I was diagnosed Sept 2008 and have been on irinotecan with avastin with a change from 5fu to Xeloda in 2010.   I've had 3 breaks and always progressed after 2 months (once the avastin wears off).  I integrate my treatments with a bit of natural medicine and TCM to maintain a good quality of life as I try to stay alive.  It's difficult when the disease is deemed inoperable but there are options out there that can help to keep the cancer responsive to chemo while helping the body to heal from the damage of chemo.  I'm almost 4.5 years on the same chemo and beginning to get the attention of my oncologists at the cancer clinic.     Having said that, I have to admit it's getting old already.  Don't get me wrong...I love my life and I love living it!   It would be nice to be to commit to plans a little further ahead without hesitation, reduce the appointments etc.  Well, if I stay alive long enough, perhaps I will see the cure discovered.  For now, I'm looking to be my onc's first patient who has survived 5 years on chemo with active disease.  Only 6 months to go!!

I am on palliative chemo for life I have been told. Not too happy with that and plan to get off after 4 more cycles. I believe this is a dead end and have to give some immunotherapies a go before my immune system gets too hammered.

Chemo is a subject I know all too well. I've had roughly 50 doses, 12 Folfox and the rest Folfiri.  At one point my doctor told me I had incurable and inoperable cancer and that chemo was my only option.  At about dose 36 I decided that I could not longer do chemo every 2 weeks, it was taking me longer and longer to recoup. This was no way to live life. I told my Onc I was going to take my dose every 4 to 5 weeks, depending on how I felt.  I explained to him that I needed to feel good for awhile, the extra 2 and 3 weeks of recouping after chemo was heaven sent! I felt so much better taking chemo this way, I felt I had my life back and things were for the most part normal.  The only reason my Onc agreed to this timeline is because the biology of my cancer has proven to be very slow. He could see that taking chemo was becoming a real struggle.   I took my last dose of chemo in Oct of 2011, at that point I had enough. Lucky for me it was also the point where my Onc made a complete 180 degree turn on my prognosis.  In a three year period, he saw the tumor in my abdomen decrease in size and he saw the tumor in my plural stay the same, and no new new tumors anywhere.  He decided that we should remove the the tumor in the tummy and keep an eye out on the plural tumor. I was successfully operated on April 2012 , tumor in my belly is gone, I had recent CT & Pet scan done, my abdomen is clean and the tumor in my plural didn't show up on the PET Scan and may now be nothing but scar tissue. 

Buster