One way to survive three cancers

Sure sounds like Po but sure looks like Max in photo.  Whatever, it is totally wonderful and inspiring. Almost 8 years of never giving up!!!  Did Max lend you his photo or are you just testing us?  I've been off line for quite a while due to husband's pancan.  I've had 2 maintenence rounds of Rituximab and am about 10 months post Auto Stem Cell Transplant.  Kinda' pooped out but will try to post shortly.

paella 

po18guy said:

Max is da man!

I took the latest pic after Max changed his. Once I'm off of prednisone, we will essentially be identical twins. We have more in common than I thought...

If you smile in your pics, Po, people will differentiate us with no problems....

I have looked at my pices over the last 50 years, and am not smiling in any one of them; just aint natural for me.

max

I have been cancer free for 33 years now. I have been really healthy, up to the last three years. I am athletic and relatively small man. three years ago I started having hip problems. Eventually I had hip replacement. I read the long term effects from AVBD MOPP and Radiation can cause deteriation of the hip and bone anyone ever heard anything about that. Also I am having unusual teeth problem, I served 20 years in the AF and have m,aintained my teeth preety well. Anyone experience any of these problem. But through it all I`m blessed to be alive . 55 years old and have a 19 year old

po18guy said:

Treatment takes its toll

Since we are essentially the second generation of aging chemotherapy patients in human history, we are finding out what sort of price we must pay to remain alive. Having had a transplant, I am watching for avascular necrosis, a rather nasty hip joint condition. The Myelo Dysplastic Syndrome is apparently a treatment-related cancer. My teeth have taken a hit and seem more brittle, as two of them have chipped. Immune suppression prevents their repair at this time, and I may lose a few of them. That is life. That is the "cost of living." By the numbers, I should have died in 2008 - much more so in each year following. I recall daily that we must be alive to have complaints. 

Po,

After 6 months of R-EPOCH eight years ago, my neighbor, who had had Stage 4 Large-B Cell NHL, had to have both hips replaced. The replacement became necessary about two years after he ended chemo.  He was only 30-something at the time, and his onc told him that the drugs fairly often cause large bone to die.  Perhaps at random, he also got severe shingles at about the same time.

You mentioned the interesting fact that we are toward the end of the "Second Generation" of chemo recipients."    As you know,  the first-ever chemo was developed during WW II (1942 ff) in a joint venture between the Army and Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  And it was used specifically against Hodgkins's Lymphoma.  The drug was Mustargen, derived from Mustard Gas, a chemical warfare agent ("NH-2").

Mustargen is still in popular use today against Lymphoma and Leukemia in the US and around the world.  Like many early and modern chemo drugs, it is a vesicant -- blister agent.  When you think about the toxicity of a drug like Mustargen and compare it to, say, Rituxan, the progress is striking.

I like your line about "you must be alive if you have complaints."  It is similiar to mine, which I have used for years:  What is the significance of side-effects if you are dead ?

We get used to receiving these drugs in a hospital, and know that everything has "modern" FDA approval.  It seems anaseptic to us, harmless.

Then the hair all falls out, many people have their nails crumble, they can't eat, they loose feeling in the hands and feet for years, if not forever.  The list is long, very long.   There is no walking from chemo unfazed, undamaged.

Mustargen:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlormethine

max

po18guy said:

Treatment takes its toll

Since we are essentially the second generation of aging chemotherapy patients in human history, we are finding out what sort of price we must pay to remain alive. Having had a transplant, I am watching for avascular necrosis, a rather nasty hip joint condition. The Myelo Dysplastic Syndrome is apparently a treatment-related cancer. My teeth have taken a hit and seem more brittle, as two of them have chipped. Immune suppression prevents their repair at this time, and I may lose a few of them. That is life. That is the "cost of living." By the numbers, I should have died in 2008 - much more so in each year following. I recall daily that we must be alive to have complaints. 

I had peripheral t cell lymphoma 8 years of chemo 1st chops then relapse then they tried ICE didnt work I had kiaser at the time and they wouldn't pay for a chemo that did end up working Kiser had me in palatine care, I then went to UCLA and my oncologist put me on folotyn, I don't understand why I am not thrilled I survived. I stopped chemo on my own without the Dr telling me too. I  have never spoke with anybody during or after chemo just wondering how you felt?