hamptonsarasota
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I ended up with 5 cycles (10 treatments) of Gem/Cis, didn’t lose any hair, but it stopped growing. No nausea whatsoever, took the steroid shot they give you at the time of treatment and didn’t have any other nausea at all. Radiation gave me more nausea to be honest… Good luck!
I’m flying in to Houston and land at Hobby airport around 8:35 central. I will be there until Thursday. What day is your appointment with Javle? Shoot me an email at derinhampton@gmail.com and we’ll coordinate something!
The steroids are definitely the happy drug and the cause of feeling good for the first 2 days. I never felt bad or tired day 3 and on, nor did I have to take any additional nausea meds either. Radiation is what made me more nauseous and tired than the chemo. Everyone reacts differently and the chemo you are on makes a difference as well (Gemzar/Cisplatin for me, didn’t lose any hair either). Age may also play a role (I was 40 going through the chemo) and your current health status too. Hope the situation improves as you go forward…
When is your appointment next week? I may be in Houston. Also, where is Dr. Javle’s office actually located?
Dr. Jarnagin was my surgeon at Sloan. They know what they are doing, that’s for sure. Nothing but good things to say about his team. Tell him Derin Hampton said hello if you get to meet him.
I agree with Lainy, I just barely started to turn yellow in the eyes at the end, and if mom is turning yellow already, there’s a lot of billiruben backup and the itching will get nothing but WORSE unfortunately as the bili levels increase. Second opinion time, I didn’t deal with any external drains, but the stent they put in gave me IMMEDIATE relief and the itching went away very fast. My nausea after eating anything went away that night with dinner also… good luck!
Amen to the tiredness, but since I finished up in June, all good now! I also had it every day 5 days a week with oral Xeloda too for a total of 5 weeks. first 3 weeks I continued to work out, but the last 2 and about 2 weeks afterwards I just listened to my body because it was tired! This is the first week I’ve hit the gym with weights 2x, last week only 1 time, but I’ve been running (ok, jogging) 3-4 days a week getting ready for my tough mudder deal in December.
Kris, a question: you mentioned different angles, did they shoot the radiation, stop, reposition the machine, shoot again? I had a continuous burst for about 2 minutes where the machine did a 360 degree revolution, pause, then another 2 minute burst with 360 degree rotaton, and that was it. Poor man’s CT at the initial part of each visit to line me up, but overall I was in and out in roughly 10-15 minutes… Just curious. Anyway, glad you’re done, let’s hope for some good results on the next scan!
Pam,
I was originally stared off on a 50mg dose of Zoloft and took it daily (January, start of chemo) and after a month and a half, it seemed to not be helping too much. Apparently, one of my stature (5’10” 200lb, not that I’m fat, 34 waist, not a lot of belly fat) this dose was not enough. They upped it to 100mg, and I’ve been on that dose for about 3 months. Never had any side effects, and I agree that it takes some time for this medicine to take effect. I’m continuing to take it even though I’ve been done with radiation/chemo since the 2nd week of June, not sure if I’ll stop to be honest. I was high strung to begin with, and it seems that I’m a bit more mellow on the Zoloft. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you the same thing! Take the half dose for a week, then up the dose to what they prescribed and you should be fine…Technically, I was ‘cancer free’ 5 days before I was officially diagnosed last September. We weren’t officially told it was CC until the pathology came back after my surgery. 8/29/11 was confirmed that a mass was on the bile duct, 9/14/11 I had the surgery…
I’m done… No more radiation for me! Pretty tired today, slept until noon, but hey, it was the last day of treatment! See the oncologist tomorrow, bloodwork, then set up plan for next scan date.
That’s why I slept this morning until about 10 minutes ago after treatment this morning… My platelets were down a bit on Thursday, but with only 2 treatments to go they weren’t concerned. I do take Xeloda 2x per day, 1650mg but only on the days of treatment, not the weekends so that’s been my ‘recovery’ time. Monday is it, then we’ll see what happens!
I don’t know about changing docs if you get to a surgical option… That’s the main reason I went to Sloan, knowing that I would have to have surgery one way or the other to ‘fix’ the blockage in the bile duct that I had. Radiation/Chemo is one thing locally, but surgery is another altogether…
