update/advice

[Theresa Upton]

Hi, today I received my midway scan results and although there is a cure they are good. The tumour on my pancreas has reduced by 50% and my liver metastases has significantly reduced in size.

Although I am well in myself I am finding that the chemo is taking it toil and I am feeling unwell for longer periods of time, so I have discussed today with my oncologist whether to reduced the strength of the chemo so the side effects are reduced or to go from 2 weekly treatments to 3 weekly...……this option gives my body more time to recover and also gives me more time away from the hospital and time to spend visiting etc. Does anyone have any thoughts/ experience etc.

Theresa

[toodotty]

Hi Theresa,

Fantastic news about the tumour shrinkage, the chemo looks like it is really working. Let the Oncologist know about the side effects they may be able to adjust your general drugs to help rather than reduce the chemo. However, I did have 2 rounds of reduced chemo as I had jaundice, I think they dropped the iritocan (sorry cannot spell it) and this did help. Some people are also forced to do 3 weekly cycles due to a drop in white blood cells so it is not unheard of. I used milk thistle to control the symptoms and this worked really well for me. Through cycles 6-12 my hair even grew back.

I am not sure where you are on the treatment rounds but I had a chemo holiday between rounds 6 and rounds 7 to give my body a chance to recover, this was for about 1 month and it was lovely.

Erika