Mike's first induction chemo was done on Thursday, Jan 28th. He spent all day at the CCC. First they gave him iv fluids for 3 hours, an iv anti-nausea med and a steroid, then taxophere, then cisplatin, then 3 more hours of fluids and hooked him up to a cartridge with 5fu in it. This had a fanny pack type bag he carried around all weekend. It ran for 96 hours, and then he returned it to the CCC.
He went to work on Friday, but starting on Saturday he got really tired, and didn't return to work until the following Thursday. He developed a couple of mouth sores, a few sores on his face/neck, indigestion, and thrush. The thrush was in the form of white patch in his mouth and red raised patches in his armpits. Two more prescriptions for the thrush and indigestion and he feels pretty normal now, although he did suddenly get weak and tired yesterday.
Some things tasted terrible, and he couldn't eat sweet stuff for about a week because it hurt his mouth. He continued to drink a lot. I mixed up some baking soda/salt water for gargling and that seemed to help some.

One "funny" side effect he got that he still has is what we call his "crop circles". On the side of his abdomen he has 3 perfectly round red circles about the size of a silver dollar. They don't itch, and are slightly raised but almost look like he laid on something and it left an imprint. When he went in for his blood work, which was all good last Thursday - they pulled everyone in to look at them and nobody has ever seen anything like it. Anyone else have any strange things like this?

He gets his second IC on the 18th - then fitted with the mask for radiation on the 23rd. Then he will start radiation and either 1x week or 3 doses of cisplatin around the 8th of March.

For anyone who has gone through similar treatment, was the second IC therapy worse, or did you have about the same reactions as the first round? I know everyone is different but he feels like he really didn't handle the first round well (he says some of the posts here made it sound like the ic didn't affect them, but I told him that may be compared to what is coming with the combined rad/chemo).

Just wanted to look for suggestions to try and make this second round better, and share with others who may be getting ready to go through IC.

Blessings,
Shelly