Cisplatin 5 x w/1week in hospital each time.

I do not know if they will give radiation at the hospital everyday w/chemo.(Did not ask)

I thought 1 day to get chemo, then check out and get radiations 4x, then back for more chemo.

I was too distraught to ask, as I went alone.

Is this normal? Petey

Hi Petey,

I'm guessing you will have radiation on chemo days. ...I think that's pretty standard

It makes for long days, but on the plus side if my husband wasn't having radiation on chemo days we would have to add extra days to the treatment calendar to get his 35 RTs in...and, that would be tough.

They gave my husband a heavy dose of ativan prior to the cisplatin and that made him very tired. On a chemo day, do you have someone who can drive you home if you are tired or a little loopy?

Did they write you a bunch of anti-nausea scripts for the Cisplatin. At our site, they made us fill three scripts that we had to come to the hospital with on the day he started treatment.

They started him on the meds there and then gave us a very detailed schedule of what to take and when for the week. The goal was to ward of the nausea before it came. That worked for him. Although, my husband had hearing issues from the cisplatin so he had to be switched off of it. He doesn't regret the dose he had or the hearing issue as Cisplatin seems to be the current gold standard.

All the best,

Petey--being too distraught to ask sounds pretty normal to me!

Like Margaret's husband, I get meds to take for nausea and am injected with 2 lots before they even put the first chemo bag through.

Good luck--will be thinking of you
Brenda

They will keep me in the hospital for 6 days for Each Chemo Tx.

That is 36 days just for chomo......?

I will attemp to copy this very "pleasing to the eye"(If your Latin) "Progress notes" and then the "Physicians Orders".

Hey Petey,
Mom is having chemo 1/wk, 8 total treatments. She was given a large dose of benadryl and something else prior to her first treatment. She was also given anti nausea drugs. On the day of your first treatment they recommend that you take the med as soon as you get home and follow the directions for that day and as needed there after...stay ahead of it!!
Mom gets chemo on Mondays, outpatient, and then her radiation treatment, then the rest of week is just her rads. She has been totally exhausted over the last two weekends.
She asked me to tell you to call if you wan tto talk to her about her experience. She said she would like to give back!
Good luck.

Petey, the norm is to get chemo and radiation together. The radiation really shouldn't stop for anything once it has started or it can undo the effects. I am not understanding why you would need a week in the hospital after each chemo--though I do see why you need a week in between each chemo. Some people who get chemo do have one night in the hospital. I understand this is a lot coming at you at once--is it possible you misundertood about the week in the hosptial each time?

Nelie

The typical Cisplatin protocol has been three infusions, every three weeks with the first one on the first day of radiation.

Some people have had smaller and more frequent infusions but not many have been in-patient so I would be curious to ask about that part of it. Most of us just got our chemo and went home.

If you have a choice get the radiation before the chemo treatment. Eat before you have chemo. It's easier on a full stomach.

The combined weekly chemo/RT is quite common. One of the reasons people looked into this is the toxicity associated with the chemo, and how to lower it.
By chemo in this context, I mean just single agent treatment, usually cisplatin although sometimes carboplatin is used. Generally, from what I read, combination chemos (cisplatin/5FU/Taxodere are not used) during RT. Erbitux is also used together with RT.

In my case specifically, the cisplatin dose for the weekly application was 30mg/m2, this is a lot less than what you get if you do this every 3 weeks when the dosage is 90-100mg/m2. Therefore the weekly treatment makes you a lot less sick. You can also make the argument that the weekly dosage keeps more drug in your body to do its work. In my experience the weekly cisplatin was tolerated really well. You should however watch out of ringing. This may still happen, even at the lower concentration used in weekly treatments. Report this to your MO. It did in my case and I am now on weekly carboplatin. I have rads in the morning and each Thursday I get chemo (outpatient) following the radiation. There is no problem combining the treatment, and I drive myself to both "events". Until you know how you handle this you should have a backup plan, also this may change during the treatment.

The only thing I have noticed is that by Wednesdays I feel a bit queezy, which means that on Tuesday I take antinausea med (1 promethazine) which does the trick. Other what I get during the chemo and the above Promethazine I do not take anything. I too was given a 3 or more additional drugs to combat the nausea. I have not taken them except for the first time. When I discontinued them I informed the MO.
One more thing, the cisplatin infusion is done quite slowly and therefore takes a long time, bring something along to do. Should they switch you to carboplatin the infusion is a lot faster and you are out of there in less than half the time.


Best

M

Hi Petey,
I started my treatments today I have 3 cycles of just Chemo over 9 weeks and the I start 7 weeks of Rad with Cisplatin on 1.3.5 mondays. The rad is everyday but holidays and weekends here.
Bob

Hi Petey,
You will do just fine! Jordan got the 'big dose' Cisplatin on her 2nd day of IMRT. The anti nausea drugs were wonderful, she did well-just slept alot for 2-3 days. On her next scheduled dose(28 days later) she recieved Carboplatin cuz she had terrible ringing and hearing loss w/ Cisplatin. Again, anti nausea meds and slept alot. She also had Erbotux weekly for 8 weeks. Radiation 5 days a week for 7 weeks. I have read tho, where there is a smaller dose given more frequently. We'll be thinking of you. Her surgery has been scheduled for 7/30.
misskate has helped her tremendously.....THANK you for helping us find her for 'jordan'! Pulling for you, wish we could be of more help to you. Linda