Hi,

Sam is down to six radiation treatments and one more chemo session. After I posted about his experience at the halfway point he rapidly developed the mouth sores, an extremely sensitive tongue and couldn't take anything orally. Thankfully he had the PEG in and started using it 3x/day. He's using liquid Tylenol w/codeine, Magic Mouthwash and Pink Lady mouth rinses to handle the discomfort. The blood panel prior to his chemo session last Tuesday showed low white and red cell counts but they proceeded with the cisplatin at half the normal strength. The folks at the BC Cancer Agency tested again today and his platelets are back up. The chemo oncologist told us at Tuesday's appointment that this protocol is one of the toughest to endure and that "just when you can't take the pain anymore, it'll get better"...he also told us that it would probably feel better around 2 weeks post-radiation which I think might be optimistic given what I've been reading on this forum.

Regards

Elaine