Laura,

Instead of Boost you may want to try Jevity. Jevity is available by precription and may be free depending on your insurance plan. My family member (ca left later tongue) had a lot of problems with nausea but the Jevity seems to help. One can of Jevity provides about 265 calories and 10 proteins. To augument this there is a product called Benecalorie which comes in a little round container and provides over 300 calories and 7 proteins and it can be added to the jevity or boost. Also available is Beneproteine which comes in a powder form and each scoop provides 5 grams of protein. These can be added to the jevity or boost as a supplement. Both benecalories and beneproteine are available through a Walgreens.

Sorry to hear about your experience with amiphostine. My family member was able to withstand about seven treatments and then eneded up in the hospital due to a bad reaction and that was the end for amiphostine.

My family member had 35 radiation treatments and 4 chemo treatments with cisplatin. Treatments ended in late July 2005 but the side effects persists. The worst one is with a very thick mucus which won't seem to go away.

We were in a similar situation with one positive node and focal extracapsular spread. We decided on both radiation and chemo to reduce the statistical changes of a recurrence. I believe in spite of the side effects we made the right decision.

Hang in there as the chemoradiation is doable.