Hi folks…(I am attaching a picture that Carol took of our front yard after the snow. We never get snow like this so it was kind of cool to see snow again!! And I think Carol’s picture is awesome!)
Well week #11 is in the books and we made a small adjustment to the dosage this week. We cut it back a bit because the doctor is concerned about the mouth sores and fissures on my hands. He felt like a small cut back would help out without comprising the treatment. He even asked me if I wanted to just cancel the last 2 treatments and be done with it. The problem is that they have no idea whether these treatments should be for 6 months or 5 months or even 7 months. It isn’t like they can point to a certain week and say “We killed some cancer cells this week” They just don't know what these treatments do in any particular week. All they have is the results of the drug trials which give them mortality rates based on a certain amount of treatments. But if you get to the end and you can't take anymore, they cannot tell you that this last treatment is necessary or even if it will do any good at all.
So I am left with the decision and this happened during my last treatment also. 99% of me wants to just throw in the towel and say “I’m done”!! But……the purpose of these treatments is to kill any cancer cells that might possibly have survived the surgery. What if there is one cell roaming around that these last 2 treatments would kill? I try to look ahead and I want to be able to say “If it does come back, it’s not because I didn’t do everything in my power to beat it.” It might even be kind of superstitious but to me, if the program is a 12 treatment program then I am getting my 12 treatments. I don't want to second guess myself down the road.
So I signed up for Week 11 and Week 12 but with a reduced dosage on the 5-FU which is causing all the mouth and skin problems. The good news is that I am feeling much better than I normally would on a Monday but it is still too early in the week to say how it will turn out. All I know is I feel sort of ok after a pretty rough weekend. Sat and Sun were bad but today..hey I will take it!!
Week 12 is Feb 26th and then I am done and I can feel good about the fact that I didn’t cheat the program, I didn’t cop out and take the easy way out. I took my medicine and I did everything I was asked to do. So it’s out of my hands now (like it’s always been actually) and we will start a regimen of CT Scans every 6 months to watch and hope and pray that nothing comes back this time.
I will update the blog later this week and hopefully things will continue like they are today.
Peace and Love to all of you..we are almost done!!
John
We know this has been a long trial.. and we both agree, that your decision to continue the 12 weeks of treatments, is a good choice. If you stop now, and the later CT scans should show a cancer cell, you will always wonder "If we had gone two more times... " This way, you would have done the recommended time line..
ReplyDeleteSuch a difficult decision to make, when you two are going thru these horrible trials to the body... We send our love, support and above all ... LOTS of prayers ..
"J & B"..