14 October 2007

 

Gearing up for more chemo tomorrow

About 13 hours from now, I start a new six-month round of chemotherapy, my first such treatment since back in May. This batch is intended to try to shrink the metastatic tumours in my lungs that spread from the original cancer in my intestine, which was removed in July.

I'm having a whole new fun regimen codenamed "GIFOLFIRI," which involves irinotecan (Campto), folinic acid (Leucovorin), and our old friend 5-FU. No oxaliplatin as far as I can tell. The irinotecan is the nasty one this time around, with risks of hair loss (maybe, not for certain, but I don't care much) and possibly drastic diarrhea, which can be treated, but only about 15% of patients get it, so they don't give the antidiarrheals to everyone. They're also giving me bevacizumab (Avastin, an artificial monoclonal antibody) again to see if it can slow or reverse the tumour growth.

All of that is for the metastases in my lungs, of which I believe there are four, and which are still small and not growing too fast. (I've noticed no decreased lung function, although I haven't been doing really strenuous things such as bike riding like I used to.) I'm just not sure how I'll react, or how I will feel in a few days.

On a cheerier note, I've been enjoying these old TV theme songs (via JWalk), especially S.W.A.T. and of course the immortal Mission: Impossible (MP3 files). And crazy people who jump off mountains are fun to watch too.

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Comments:

Good luck on this round o' chemo!
 
My favourite part of your post is "rather small and not growing too fast".

We sure hope to read soon that those metastases are "now impossible to detect by the scanner". But that will be in a few weeks...

We keep our fingers crossed for you !
 
Good luck with the chemo Derrick. I hope you do not have huge side effects and that it is effective! Take care.
 
Derek, I wish you all the luck in the world w/the chemo. You "sound" rather, well not "cheery" (I'm a foreigner, after all), but quite positive, which I think is great.
 
Thinking of you.