HI TomCA,

First, congratulations on getting through your treatments. MY observation is that the way that radiation and chemo (namely Cisplatin) affects different people differently. Your reaction sounds like mine, but "horrible torture" is at least a couple numbers up the scale for me. On the other hand, I sure won't quibble about the toll it takes on the body.

I don't mean for any of what I say to be taken as anything but a simple "Here's another perspective;" and certainly not to downgrade, belittle or dismiss anything you've said. Each of us is unique, each of our experiences is unique to us alone.

I'm stage IVc and am like my famous ancestor, Daniel Boone Barton. He was famous because in the late 1700s, he once fought and killed 6 bears with his bare hands.

Alas, he was fighting with 7 bears at the time... But I digress.

Counting the original dx, I've on my 7th occurrence, and the last 6 (recurrences) have all been distant Mets.

We haven't started on #7 yet because of some body parts that aren't cooperating. Saturday before last, I developed a inlingual hernia from extremely violent "dry heaves" that (it turns out) were (are, had one last night) the byproduct of neuropathy my colon, which has quit squeezing the contents on down the line.

I can't get that taken care of until I get the hernia fixed and my first consult with a cutter is tomorrow. No idea when he'll do the simple repair, but soon would be an excellent choice from my perspective.

Once the hernia is repaired, the colon can be addressed, but that will depend on how much the latest (#7)
lymph node has grown in the interim. It's all good, these things all work themselves out in the end.

The current plan is 3 more weeks of "beam" radiation for good ol' #7, the a wait until I'm not too hot for a valid PET, and re-evaluate at that point.

I've had my "pain and suffering" scale re-calibrated a couple of times; recovering from getting gut shot is my current 10) and surviving a Flail Chest, and those were over 40 years ago.

But there was a lengthy period during my initial Cancer treatments where I couldn't keep anything in my stomach and I lost 38 lbs, mostly solid muscle (now I look more like a Bataan death march survivor.) It's questionable whether I would have survived without Cannabis to give me a chance to hold something down long enough to benefit from it.

Honestly, I'd give the initial treatments a solid 7, maybe an 8; packing both lobes of my liver with radioactive microspheres a 6 or a 7, and everything else pretty much a "walk in the park."

In fact, I recently downgraded all of my subsequent radiation when I learned that the constant low-level nausea that I've had for the past year or so is really related to my obstructed colon, and not directly a result of the various rads.

Well, that's enough words to keep the board functioning smoothly, so I'll quit and save some for another time.

Bart