HI Littlebird,

I'm a male, nearly 74, and I've been dealing with Oropharyngeal cancer since August, '09. I've actually had it much longer, but didn't get diagnosed until I was stage IV.

I immediately picked up the fact that your mother likes to keep in shape. You've no idea how important that can be to a cancer patient, believe me, it''s HUGE!!!

So let me start with advice that is counter to what everyone else will tell you. That is, do whatever you can so that your mother can continue to exercise while going through this process. It can be done and other than the first time I was treated, I haven't missed a workout due to chemo. When I get too tired to do any more, I quit and go home.

I've had a lot of chemo (Carboplatin and Taxol; carbo & Taxetere; and finally Xeloda (a pill form of 5FU.) I have felt fine 99% of the time - other than tired - and utterly no nausea (other than the Cisplatin). Once one has experienced Cisplatin, one will understand the benefit of that "no nausea." Read my intro (dated today) for more on this.

I'll bet that the first Chemo agent they use will be Cisplatin. Obviously, if I had the hindsight to do so, I would have refused the port and gone to the gym. As it is, the port has a tube that goes directly into the Jugular Vein - you don't want to pull it out and bleed to death internally, so you are restricted to lifting less than 10 lbs while you have a port. She could continue to swim if she didn't have the port.

Without working out, nausea will be a real problem. I lost 38 lbs because I simply could not keep anything down beyond a single bottle of Ensure plus (350 calories). The port is nice, but being able to work out is nicer.

My cancer came back after 17 months. That time, I refused a port and got an IV once a week for three weeks in each cycle, and I had 5 cycles that time and worked out. That time I got the Carbo/Taxol/Taxetere cocktails. I advised a woman in MI at the time, who was undergoing the exact same cocktail; she spent the first 5 days after each infusion in the fetal position. She did not work out.

After the end of my second cycle of that cocktail, I had a conference with my MO who asked me how I was tolerating the current chemo. I mentioned that I had noticed a bit more hearing loss, but more concerning to me was the fact that I was starting to get exhausted mid-way through my weight-lifting workouts.

He nearly fell on the floor laughing. When he stopped, I asked what was so funny? He explained that in over 20 years, he'd never had a patient use "Chemo" and "workout" in the same paragraph! Draw your own conclussions.

This brings up another point, the importance of proper nutrition during the survival process, and survival is the name of this exercise. Surviving any life-threatening event is an energy-intensive activity, and the need always comes when one is least able to acquire the needed energy. This forces the body to consume muscle and weakens it overall. Ensure (or equivalent) is a good solution. Jevity (the product that is fed through a PEG) is another.

klo gave excellent advice about being Pro-Active. Take nothing for granted and question everything. Doctors do good work and having saved my life on a number of occasions, I won't condemn them here, but do pay attention and follow up on every promise. Don't assume that because a doctor says something will happen, that it will. You will have to follow up and hold their feet to the fire to make things happen as they say they will.

Finally, to you and the world at large, medical grade cannabis is a life-saver. While I was taking Cisplatin, I would not even have been able to keep a single bottle of ensure down, so severe was my nausea. My doc tried three very expensive anti-nausea drugs but each seemed to make things worse. Finally, I got some cannabis indica and that gave me immediate relief and made it easy to sleep. Avoid the synthetic crap that can be obtained legally, it does nothing for me.