Hi - thanks so much for the helpful reply, Paul! and for your wishes Alpaca - so Erbitux rashes are good things, ok - and I shall do my best to care for my hands and feet!

Yes on the cisplatin radio-sensitising sounds right, thanks smile (Oh - with my British English spelling lol). I'm pretty sure it was done over a few days' hospitalisation, with strong pre- and post-fluids for the kidneys and to cleanse the system, but to be honest it's all a blur!

Tell me, are you still being treated with the product, or how many sessions did you have? The chemo consultant here said I would be on it once a week for the rest of my life.

I don't know, I'm feeling uneasy about the extreme-sounding care (and indeed the paperwork states the protocool as 'extreme'), given that (as far as I know) the metastasis is again limited - although once in the lymphs you don't know, do you - so I guess it's preventative - but I don't know, it sounds so major. I need to have a conversation with him this week, because he did go over the actual chemo treatment very quickly, just said the product names once, and it's not written down anywhere, but I'm pretty certain he said the mix would include cisplatin again.

I do recall that, when they decided to operate the 2nd lot of lung nodules, my radiotherapist (who is divine) told me that they were badly placed for radiotherapy, being near an important concentration of blood vessels, making radiotherapy potentially lethal if there was the slightest error; hence the preference for surgery in that instance. I think they saw good hope for a full excision of the infected cells, but sadly it didn't happen.

I had various pre-treatment tests this week - well, I now know I have good hearing (let's hope the treatment doesn't adversely affect it) and that they will be able to put a new port catheter on the right hand side (which is the side I had the neck/tongue surgery, so it was a bit dubious, but is fine - can't have it on the other side as that is where I had a thrombosis on the last one, and the jugular is blocked). But I havn't had any feedback on the top-to-tail scan or heart scintigraphy. I would certainly like to know if there is evidence of any cancerous growths elsewhere. If not, well - well. I'd like to understand their decision process better.

Thanks for the feedback all.


6/09 lump undr chin
10/09 SCC R tonsular fossa T4N0M0, spread to tongue
11/09 R tonslctmy, partl glssctmy, nd
2/10 IMRTx30, Cispltnx3
5/10 thrombosis port cath remvd L jugular blckd
1/12 mets R lung, part lung remvd
1/13 mets R lung
2/13 partl lobectmy upper R lobe
12/14 MRI enlrgd nodes meta oesophgs
1/15 DX recur 4cm lymph
2/15 Start 6xCispltn+Erbitx+?