Hi Eric,
Chemo was hard for me. Like Karen I was scheduled for 3 treatments every 21 days. At the end of 21 days the tumor had completely melted. I was pretty nauseated from the chemo about starting a day or two afterwards and slowly dimishing by the end of a week or 2. The second round was worse. They shortened it to 2 treatments. Getting the chemo itself was no big deal and it only took about 3-4 hours at the infusion unit I was at (protocol being similar to others postings). The thing I remember the most was, having a metallic taste, smelling like a chemical factory and having especially pungent body odor for a while after the chemo - then it all went away. I had a fair amount of ringing in the ears as well.

They should give you a baseline hearing test, kidney function, liver function, potassium and other blood tests prior to treatment. You should get additional bloodwork every week. I had an acid problem also so I took industrial strength Pepcid AC (Famotidine). Some antiemetic medications like Zofran are only effective for 3-5 days then you must switch. Make sure you have your drugs lined up ahead of time. Keep your fluid intake up (2-3 liters a day).

Oddly enough, subseqent hearing tests showed an improvement!

I made the decision to go with this intitially because it afforded an additional 6% to the 5 year survival rate. Subseqent studies have upped that to as high as 14%. As miserable as it was I would do it again.

My understanding (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that Cisplatin is a radiation enhancer and not a systemic type of chemo - in other words it will not take out cancer cells in other areas (although the poisoning effect sure had me fooled). I think this is why some folks get 5FU as well. Cisplatin also does very little bone marrow damage which the other forms of chemo do.

Others have warned you already about adverse effects so I won't repeat that here.

Not everyone reacts like me to chemo (Cisplatin)- some folks sail through it.