Caregiver88,

Some become life dependent because of the surgeries they must endure, some due to the damage caused by radiation, some due to a combination of both and some we suspect due to non use of the muscles during Tx. Certainly there is no way the patient can prevent surgical or radiation damage but we tell patients to continue swallowing throughout the Tx to perhaps prevent those muscles from loosing the memory of their purpose.

Tell him to be on the lookout for "ringing" coming from his ears. If he hears or feels ANYTHING different concerning his hearing he should immediately inform his chemo doc as Cisplatin can cause permanent hearing loss. Nothing can be done with the chemo already in his body but they may opt to switch him to Carboplatin for the 3rd if he has damage from Cis #2.

My 2nd Cis was the beginning of my nausea downfall and I could not find anything that really worked for me. I am/was a bad impatient patient and I didn't have the benefit of the advise from this site until 3 weeks post Tx so looking back perhaps I didn't give my meds enough time to take affect but if something doesn't work in the time that the docs say it should keep trying because this Tx plus nausea equals a very bad time.

Again without the sage advise of this site I was lucky to have made it through as well as I did. I was a real sick puppy from my 2nd Cis until about 2 weeks post Tx and I did benefit from a nasal tube for those 2 weeks post that they literally had to force me to try but it made all the difference in the world.

My first year of recovery was certainly the most challenging with the lows of getting use to post cancer life and the highs of surviving a stage IV cancer but I really don't think I recovered to my full potential until after 24 months.

One over riding comment is that we all can react differently but this can be the most difficult time in both of your lives, both physically and mentally so just be prepared for anything and remember that anything is pretty much normal with this Tx.