Vanessa,

I can understand how difficult this is as my husband had the same three drugs (similar diagnosis)as an induction treatment (to shrink tumor and minimize likelihood of distant metastisis) before he started chemo/radiation. We called the 5fu our own name- 5 f@#$ you as it seemed to cause most of the side effects. But you're correct- they're usually done as induction chemo. I can see how demoralizing it would be to get through the chemo and radiation so well and then to get so sick. My husband found the first round of the 3 drugs to be more difficult than the second. The meds to manage mouth sores and nausea helped. On the other hand, he had a more difficult time than many when he got near the end of the regular chemo/radiation which I believe is because of the induction chemo. He was really sick at a couple of points in his treatment and had pretty extreme side effects. We have wondered if his treatment would be different in the future because he is HPV+. BUT- he is cancer-free nearly two years following treatment and doing really well.

It sounds as if they have some reason to believe that these 3 drugs will help your husband's prognosis. Maybe I missed the reason for them in your emails. As difficult as it is to go through this, we have never regretted the aggressive approach because reasons for given to us for why the team chose that approach - and, we don't know if he'd be doing as well if he hadn't had it. But it was so difficult to see him sometimes and I had to remind myself that we could get through this and that is was just a matter of days or weeks in what we hoped would be a long lifetime.

My thoughts are with you and your husband- Sophie