Life time Chemotherapy treatment and Work

and nutraceuticals.   Longer cancer responses, fewer problems than standard.   Click my 'nym.

optimist777 said:

For the vast majority of

For the vast majority of cancer patients this would be impossible-- end of story.  Imagine the worst flu of your life, fatigue, pain, and brain fog.  I suppose a few iron men/women exist, but they are extremely unusual, and probably have relaxing jobs like bird watcher, or something.  Just my two cents.

Bird Watching is not relaxing. I've hiked miles and miles up steep mountain terrain to bird watch. Great exercise. 

Garden bird watching, is relaxing though.  Sit back in a chair in front of the window and enjoy nature. 

Tru

I'm thinking is the same as the maintenance chemo I'm currently on. It's similar to  treating a chronic condition, which  in a way,  metastatic cancer is.  I know there are  some here who have been on maintenance chemo longer than I have, but I began neoadjuvant chemo (Folfox plus Avastin) in May 2015, followed by  chemo/radiation, then a liver  ablation. My oncologist switched me to Erbitux and Irinotecan given every two weeks in April 2016 and have been on that combo ever since except for a break for APR surgery in  October 2017. I'm in my  seventies and retired, and at 85 pounds, hardly consider myself overly hardy, so can't answer about whether it would be possible to go to work every day, but except for  the day of and the day after treatment I feel pretty good and am able to do most everyhing I did before, including gardening, yoga, walking the dogs,  housework, shopping,  cooking- and I do watch the birds that congregate at the feeders, which admittedly, is nowhere near as strenuous as the variety of bird-watching Tru does ;-). I think a lot depends on the person, their physical condition, mental attitude and support network,  the drug combination, the   medical team, etc., but for some people it is doable.

Grace/lizard44

I was diagnosed with stage 4 CRC 5 years ago.  started on fol fox, some avast in and surgeries followed.  Was able to work for 5 or 6 month stretches without too much problem.  Been on capecitabine for past 3 years 8 months, still work part time as consultant but can’t work full time very well.  So based on my experience, part time or temp work is doable

it really depends on the individual.  I think age and fitness play a part.

I’m stage 4, lifetime chemo, and handling it astonishingly well after 9 rounds.  I’m young but not fit.

I work a slightly reduced schedule because of testing & chemo days.  Energy and brainpower mostly still here but I won’t take on a really challenging assignment.

I don’t know how long this will last.  I have a personal goal of 100 rounds of chemo and eventually it’s going to catch up with me.  I watch my oxi neuropathy like a hawk.  Had to get on Neulasta to combat a WBC crash.

Best of luck,

-Doug 

Far and away, the best QoL (work) and longevity stage IV group record is with Lin's ADAPT protocol.  It's a small study, so oncologists typically ignore  it.  From my point of view, the real task is to improve, personalize, and customize backbone formulas like it even better.  Lin later tried to lower the Xeloda doses even more, and I suspect that did not work well - we've hit a  clear 5FU minimum requirement ourselves and I think others have too.   

Our point of view is,  rather to further improve mild metronomic chemo with high potency supplements with properties that have noticeable, even measurable improvements and effects that also counter chemo's side effects.  We are able to simply dispense with most of the expensive bandaids that accompany regular cyclical chemo.

Most people either can't do 4 straight years of regular chemo (e.g. Folfox/Folfiri), or it quits on them from resistance.  In Lin's breakthrough study, his patients had not hit the median OS at 94months, almost 8 years. The place I see major upside, is that oncologists don't know beans about the off-label drugs and supplement areas, and are not using opportunities already known in the medical literature.