Heather and Seth,

I am so sorry to hear that Michael is this sick. Just so you know, not every H&N patient has had chemotherapy along with radiation. My husband has a risk factor for chemo that the chemo oncologist felt was greater than the ~10% added survival factor warranted. So he had surgery, a neck dissection, and IMRT. We used every kind of complementary medicine ever shown to help with side effects. He used acupuncture before radiation began (for nausea, pain, anxiety) and is still going. He did Guided Imagery and auto-hypnosis specifically for healing cancer and relieving stress. He took a few supplements that we saw recommended on Dr. Andrew Weil's website (the Vitamin Advisor) for patients going through radiation/chemo. He had a very easy time through the majority of the IMRT treatment. We both realize and wonder whether the absence of that ~10% incremental survival rate is going to bite him in the future. But the decision was made and we're happy at this point he didn't have chemo due to his risk factor. Now that he is eating again, I'm getting ready to start preparing a cancer prevention diet based on info I've found on Brian's Cancer News section and a few other sites. My only real point in saying all this is that if Michael needs to quit the chemotherapy, I (personally) wouldn't sweat it too much. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people on this forum who might disagree with me, but I thought I would give you one perspective that might be unique (for better or worse).

Take care, and I hope things improve soon.

Connie