Treatment Description - Target Start Date Still TBD

This update is just a quick overview of what’s in store for the treatment. We have been getting queries to this effect from friends and family, and the most effective way to communicate is here. So the below is what we know.

I met with the radiologists on Monday morning, Sep 8. True to my experience thus far, MD Anderson was a machine, barely giving me time to get bored with the Barbara Walters special blaring on the waiting room TV. They measured and weighed me, then set about the task of scaring the holy grail out of me.

What was amazing was that my case worker, a physician’s assistant named Daniel Malatek, spent a good 45 minutes with me. That’s longer than I have ever spent with a doctor who’s actually doing his/her doctor thing. The only exception was Cate’s birth when the doctor spent 12 hours with us. And once in grade school, but I don’t think that counts even though we had a stethoscope.

The radiology begins sometime next week in Houston and lasts for 5½ to 6 weeks. That puts me tentatively finishing treatment the week of my birthday on Oct 27. I am going to relish that. The doctors told me that the effects will last a few weeks beyond my last treatment though. So I may spend my birthday in radiation-hang-over land. TBD.

This Thursday I go back to MDA for a planning session. This includes a “fitting” in another CT machine where they hold me still and tattoo me for laser alignment, and then set a cradle that holds me in the same position for all the subsequent treatments. These measures ensure the machine always aims the radiation beam in the best spot to kill the tumor while minimizing the possibility of collateral damage to other organs in the vicinity. And they give you a tattoo. Awesome.

I also begin chemotherapy next week, if the radiologists get all their planning and positioning done. The doctors want to start both simultaneously to minimize the duration and side effects. The chemo is with a newish drug called Xeloda. I have heard from other doctors that it can be a very effective drug for the types of cancer it targets; fingers crossed.

Side effects from radiation and chemo comprise a long list of unpleasant things aside from the tattoo. The two most concerning physical things are nausea and the brown derby. The most concerning mental thing is that I could be very tired a lot of the time. This is hard due to the fact that when I am not sick, I don’t want to be tired. The doctors were sure to say that I might not experience any of these side effects, or may only experience them in slight amounts. But their responsibility dictates that they tell me all of them.  They also gave me medicine to combat the two physical ones. There’s nothing for fatigue except to sleep.

To anyone who reads this, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We feel confident about the treatment, and I am actually excited to get going on ejecting this thing from my body. I feel super without the tube. It is a life-changer to have that gone. 

: )

Wade