Michael,

I just wanted to repeat what everyone else said about cisplatinum. It's a tough treatment, although everyone responds differently. It was especailly had on me because very few of the anti-emetics worked for me, although Zofran did-- usually. Compazine suppositories also helped a little (kept me from just moving into the bgathroom with the dry heaves) when everything else quit working--but I HATED the way compazine made me feel. If the first combo of stuff they give you doesn't control the nausea, be prepared for some experimenting around until they find the right combo. Everyone is different in what they respond to. I also have naturally low blood pressure so they ahd to wtch thatl, especially since I was getting amifostine too.

I'm also confused by the schedule you have. It sounds like they are giving you each treatment (3 treatements, which is the standard) over two days--I had mine in one day, which I think is the more common way, but it did take about 5 hours.

The effects on survival are hardly "negligible", though. This particular type of chemo ahs been really well researched in terms of how it affects outcomes in combination with radiation and, as Gary says, the gain is clearly well over 10% --at least for your stage. Even though I am stage II I chose to have it even though my medical oncologist said a rule of thumb would be that for stage II the gain in survival would be half what it is for stage II and IV. So I chose to have it even thoguh the gain I can expect tog et was probably more like 6%. Even that seems worth it to me. But heck, I'm also willing to take Tamoxifen for my breast cancer and throw myself into early menopause filled with hot flashes for the next few years even though the gain there is probably 5% at best. My medical oncologist (who used to be at Sloan-Kettering--moved here to bring up his kids) said his experience is that it's at around the 5% gain level where people are willing to go through some hard stuff and they still find it worth it. Maybe that numnber doesn't do it for you, though....to each his own judgment on this, right?

As for problems with the PEG, I think my gastroenterologist was very cautious about the insertion--they kept me overnight with IV feeding--he didn't want me to have anything in my stomach--liquid or otherwise for 24 hours after. But when i did go home, I never had all the problems with gas that it seems aren't too uncommon. So even though you asked a bunch of surgeons about swimming with the PEG, and they seemed to think it would be OK, I think I'm going to trust my doc when he says it isn't a good idea and water leaks in (he actually had a story about this--he's seen it happen). But let us know if you do go swimmi9ng because now I'm very curious!