Hi Roma

Alex and I had a lot of experience with cisplatin. It feels like Alex was on it for 6 months. He had it during the first phase or treatment of chemotherapy alone and was dosed every third week for 4 cycles. We also chose cisplatin to partner with radiation during his chemoradiaion phase. This time cisplatin was supposed to be dosed a total of 7 times = once per week at a third of the standard dose.

Alex also stayed overnight for his first cisplatin dose. The cisplatin part of the procedure took about 5 hours because they put drugs for nausea through first then fluids to keep him hydrated then finally the cisplatin. The longest wait was for Alex to pee and they kept running the saline IV bags (for hydration and flush his kidneys) until he had peed a fairly substantial amount (800mL which I think is just under a pint). Of course the first time in the history of the world, Alex with his "Woolworths bladder", couldn't do it. On "chemo" days the routine was a large coffee whilst waiting to be "plugged in" and then 6 little cartons of apple juice whilst waiting for the bags to go through. This ensured we were never again delayed by plumbing problems (and we shared this information with every newbie we met).

In terms of timing of chemo during radiation, the procedure at our hospital in Sydney was to start chemo for new patients on the first day of radiation (usually a Monday) and then over the time period move the chemo to a different day to make way for the new patients coming in. Our chemo day ended up being Thursdays.

If you want to know more about cisplatin side effects and timings, I am happy to answer any questions either publicly or privately

Once is all starts, the trick is to just keep telling yourself that once today's treatment is done, there will one less treatment to endure. When our countdown reached single figures, we were almost jubilant even though Alex was as sick as he has ever been in his life. The end of the tunnel is so much easier to imagine when one is counting down from 10 compared with 30.

Alex also clung to the words from this website that assured him that 2-3 weeks after radiation finished, he would wake up and feel better not worse than the day before.