The Visit

It's Monday, April 22. The doctors visit was long and involved. The treatment was reviewed and reviewed and discussed. It's rather involved because of my unusual condition, mainly the fact that she has to treat two individual cancers.

 

I will be taking an oral medication for cancer of the breast and the colon. Three large tablets (Xeloda) totaling 1500 Mg's each morning and each evening.  This will be taken for 14 days then I'll be off it for 7 days and it will then be repeated again for 14 days.

The chemo taken by infusion will be done every three weeks but only if my "counts" stay up. This is the chemo to target the breast cancer only.

 Three days after the infusion chemo is done, I'll be taking Zofran and another anti emetic to combat nausea.

 

We were going to do the infusion chemo today but instead decided to wait on the first round for tomorrow morning. I'll start the oral chemo tonight.

 

Depending on how my body tolerates the medications will determine what I will be taking. I cannot drink anything cold for 5 days post chemo because of reactions from the medicine. I am looking at 9 months of this treatment if I can stay with the meds ordered.

Ultrasounds will be done to watch the progress of the medicines. This will determine when surgery will be needed on the breast. Should shrinkage happen quickly, the surgery will be moved up so the surgeon can find the area that needs attention. 

 

Surgery and radiation will take up the remainder of the year for me.

 

I'm hoping this is the process I get to stay with. Going in for infusion chemo once every three weeks is what I'm looking at right now. That sounds much better then what I expected. Sitting in the outpatient infusion room for 2 to 3 hours seems to be an "easy" out for me and I'm hoping this works.

I'm digesting all the information and keeping a calendar with all the dates that have to be remembered. I'll be charting to keep up.

This post may be updated with the names of the medications but for right now, I'm taking a break.