Patient Advocate (old timer, 2000 posts) Joined: Nov 2002 Posts: 3,552 | Nicki, I had the worst hiccups! It was pure torture and nothing really worked - steroids, brown paper bags, holding your breath, people trying to scare me, etc. - sheer brutality. All I can say it that it eventually passed. Actually in regards to your comment about chemo and radiation. They recently did a study that stated a 14% higher five year survival rate when using a combination of Cisplatin and radiation (that's up from the 6% rate in the previous study). They are always looking for a synergistic effect between the chemo and radiation.
I probably mentioned this already but my tumor had completed melted by the third week. It was not visible on the CT. I have also learned that certain tumors are also more responsive to treatment. Mine was a polypoid, polyp type of tumor and the doc said they respond very well to treatment (particularly radiation) as a rule. They were pretty amazed that as long as it had been there it was still moderately well differentiated.
One of my worst nightmares was puking in the mask but it never happened. I never had to stop treatment.
I took the antianxiety stuff just to relax a bit more. I do have a fair amount of experience with those compazine suppositories...
"The Drink" sounds a lot like what I was taking but everything tasted like sh*t no matter what is was. Strangely enough I found that I could still taste coffee flavor so Hagan Daz coffee ice cream and carnation espresso flavor instant breakfast worked pretty well. Unfortunately you can only get the espresso flavor in the multiflavor packages and the strawberry stuff was awful. I ended up giving the local convalescent home a whole lot of unused packages. I put Nestles Quik in it as well. I still lost over 60 lbs. I had to be careful that I didn't make the drinks or milkshakes too thick.
Gary Allsebrook *********************************** Dx 11/22/02, SCC, 6 x 3 cm Polypoid tumor, rt tonsil, Stage III/IVA, T3N0M0 G1/2 Tx 1/28/03 - 3/19/03, Cisplatin ct x2, IMRT, bilateral, with boost, x35(69.96Gy) ________________________________________________________ "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14 NIV)
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