I just returned from my first meeting with the radiation oncologist. He laid out about a five or six week plan for radiation therapy that includes some chemo. As the procedure progresses I can expect some fatigue and nausea as the cancer cells die off. The chemo will be stuff I had before only in smaller doses and only one of the three GTX chemicals, Xeloda. Afterwards I will probably do a couple of rounds of GTX just to clean things up a bit.
Tomorrow I go in for a PET scan and a CT scan. Following that I will go in for a 'fitting' where they make a customized plastic film to hold me exactly in place while they shoot radiation beams at my pancreas. There will also be a test to find how well my kidneys and liver function so that if they have to make a choice they can irradiate one kidney or another to make sure all the cancer in my pancreas is treated. The radiation may diminish the efficiency of the irradiated kidney. The test is also a baseline to determine how much the radiation affected those organs.
After some serious planning and factoring by the oncologist over the next few days I will begin treatment next week. It will be five days a week for about six weeks, so no out of town travel during the week for that whole time. The prognosis is very good, we expect a full recovery, and will ensure that outcome to some extent with a couple of rounds of full chemo afterwards. (Hello bald man, again.)
I applied the pain killer patch this morning. What a marvelous difference it has made. Instead of being blinded by the pain I can focus on what I am doing. I can even sleep peacefully. A small thing to be sure but crucial if you trying to have a life instead of being bent double with pain all day long. I am hoping that now I can finally pay some attention to my projects and my life. Something I have dearly missed for several weeks.
Overall I am enthusiastic about this. It sucks to have cancer but I have a very good prognosis, I have a good medical team supporting me and Nutri-Nazi is here to keep my diet rigidly controlled and enforced. And thanks to Nutri-Nazi and her fanatical ways I will be doing the treatments 3 miles from the house rather than 30 miles away.
It is a bright and sunny fall day, I am going riding on my neglected Harley.
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