Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. We (my Mom) just finished our third cycle of twice daily radiation therapy, leaving her with two more cycles to go! I was afraid to continue with the third cycle though considering her week off: hospitalized with dehydration, malnutrition, pneumonia, erratic heart beat, trouble breathing, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, fever, skin breakdown, halucinations, loss of continence, severe mucositis and surgery for the PEG. Fortunately things turned around and we were able to weather a very ugly storm. With the exception of having a "very angry mouth" (her doctor's words), we proceeded, using very effective pain management narcotics, and knocked out the third week. It feels good to get that under our belts. The CT scan doesn't show the tumor anymore, but the last physical exam still indicated a small mass, so I'm not exactly comfortable relying solely on a CT scan. We'll see what next week's exam shows. In any event, I look forward to having a more comfortable week off, as the last one was down right nasty. At the moment Mom is feeling great and just waiting out the final hours of her 5FU drip so that we can bring her home for a week of rest. Have a great weekend everyone. You're in my thoughts and prayers.
D

Hi D,
Yup, I had all that stuff too -except the pneumonia but had thrush numerous times (and you can substitute "incontinence" with "constipation") and I only had to hospitalized breifly for rehydration a couple of times. What you are describing is "standard treatment misery". Thank goodness it passes. I also had the doctors tell me that my throat was "very red" and that they are "not happy yet" with an area that has been slow to heal in the tonsil connective tissue. But they have said that it doesn't feel like a tumor and is probably scar tissue. It does show up on the MRI.

The word "mass" is a creepy word but the primary medical definition is "A quantity of material, such as cells, that adhere or unite to each other" and nowhere is mass mentioned in the definition with malignancy. Scar tissue readily jumps into this category.

If you have 2 more radiation cycles to go go, you are not out of the woods yet. What you describe though sounds very encouraging. I am really glad that your mom is getting better and moving beyond this.