Medical Status

My next chemo is chemo #8. That's technically four cycles of chemo, after which point, for my stage and characteristics, I either have radiation treatment or four more chemos. So on Thursday, March 10, I have chemo #8 and I do a pulmonary function test because I tend to get a bit short of breath these days, (Characteristic of bleomycin, one of the four chemo drugs.) Then, in a week and a half after that, I get a staging CT Scan, to see where the disease is.

The doctor and I have decided that four more chemos is better in my case than radiation. (If you are curious as to why, it's because my mediastinal mass--the tumor against my aorta--was fairly small, and I had pinpricks of activity in my pelvis as well as the lymph nodes around my collar bone. The radiation would be focused on the mediastinal mass and the lymph nodes around the collar bone, whereas chemo goes everywhere. The pinpricks are probably long blasted into chemo sludge, but given that both treatments seem to have the same outcome, why not continue blasting?) This is what I asked for but I admit, I wouldn't have been unhappy if the doctor had said I should have radiation. The effects of chemo are cumulative and I am feeling the accumulation. I don't look forward to the next four.

On the other hand, radiation has its own side effects.

But I am in the home stretch.