Mom's chemo was on the 6th and the staff are so wonderful at Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise. Her blood work looked great so on to the chemo suite she went. Everyone was so attentive and nice and they explained everything so well. Her Alimta I think was first and it took all of 10 minutes to deliver and then her Carbo plat took about 45 minutes. We took her home and she ate a nice lunch and then we just stared at her. "how you doing?" "You feeling ok?" "how about now, you ok?"
I went to the store and bought saltine crackers and ensure shakes, fruit juice and ginger ale. She's needed nothing... here we are at 7 days post chemo and she's been out Christmas shopping. We couldn't be happier.
So I do understand that treatments can stack up a bit as far as their impacts so I'm not expecting all of them to be a breeze but I have to say this was way better than anyone could have expected.
Is there any connection to symptoms and the chemo's impact? Meaning if she doesn't feel rotten does that mean it's not doing it's job?
Next treatment is 12/27 and hopefully she will have another treatment as smooth as this one.... have to see.
Reply # - December 14, 2012, 05:39 AM
Reply To: Mom's first chemo went great!
Hi Carrie,
It's so good to know your mom did well on her first treatment. Luckily there's no evidence that suggests a correlation between chemo side effects and efficacy of treatment. That is different than the recent evidence between the tarceva rash and efficacy.
Congratulations to your mom. It's true that side effects tend to worsen over many treatments but some people just sail right through. I hope your mom sails.
Janine
Reply # - December 14, 2012, 09:30 PM
Reply To: Mom's first chemo went great!
Janine's exactly right. We're very happy she's doing well, and that regimen is known to typically be very tolerable. This is really why I cringe to hear people categorically reject the idea of trying chemotherapy because they presume it will be awful. There are many different chemo regimens, and many of them are not hard for most people to tolerate. Some have few or even no side effects for some people, and yet they can still be effective, so don't presume that it has to be punishing to be effective.
-Dr. West