Tag: cisplatin

Posted on

Easter Sunday

March 30, 1997 – Easter Sunday

I wasn’t able to write anything yesterday because I was feeling quite badly. I felt like sleeping most of the day, which I did, even though D. and S. came from Arizona. They’ll be here next weekend, though, and I will be better by then. I’m already better today, but the raw feeling inside my body persists. I still feel a lot like sleeping. Perhaps this is quite a normal response to 5FU and cisplatin. I haven’t had too much nausea, and it has been quite controlled with Ativan.

About the best thing that I can recall about yesterday is that I was able to return to my belly breath quite frequently, in spite of feeling awful. I still remembered, “breathing in I’m healing myself, breathing out, I’m clear of cancer” or simply, “healing… clear”, with each breath. This practice removes me from the remorse of having cancer and controls my discursive thinking quite a bit.

We had a pot luck at our house today. Our best friends showed up with the best food! I was still feeling like my insides were raw, so I tried to soothe my insides with Aloe Vera and Rescue Remedy. They worked a little, but not 100%. I was nervous about the Aloe Vera that was bought because of its potency and purity. I’m still wondering if T-Up is worth buying.

>>> Next…

Posted on

Bagel and Lox Cream Cheese Spread

March 26, 1997 – Bagel and Lox Cream Cheese Spread

My mother would have been 81 today had she not died of an osteosarcoma almost ten years ago. I have been thinking about all the cancer in our family, and it is really outrageous. Something must be going on here that we have no control over.

Today’s treatment went more quickly than yesterday’s, and lunch was great! All I needed to feel quite good by 6:00 PM was a guided imagery tape of Leslie Davenport and a short nap. My wife and the kids have been very supportive, and I expect to fly through these days quite well.

While the cisplatin was being infused I had another massage with Nora. Because of the IV, and the time limitations, all she had time to do were my shoulders and neck, but it felt good.

In the meantime, I worked on the professional services web page.

I have decided to photograph the drawings I’ve done at Anna Halprin’s classes. One of them was linked into the day before yesterday.

>>> Next…

Posted on

Hair Raising Experience

March 13, 1997 – Hair Raising Experience

Compared to yesterday, I’m not feeling as well, even though I appeared to have more sleep. I feel a little nauseous and a bit constipated. I also feel rather tired. I think I did too much work yesterday, and I continue to work even as I write this, being interrupted by break points in my code. After a while I couldn’t code anymore and decided to sit back and listen to a tape of Deepak Chopra. I must have dozed off a couple of times during the tape, because before I knew it, I was finished with the cisplatin.

When I got home after the first round of radiation for the day, I could do nothing but crash. I focused in on my breath in my belly, and before I knew it, I had a nice nap, only to be awakened by having to pee. I tried to accomplish some work, but felt quite queasy.

Then it was time to go for the second radiation treatment. I felt the hair on my body rise as the radiation impacted my body. This distracted me slightly from my visualization of the cancer cells shriveling up and being properly eliminated. I really felt badly the rest of the day and into the night.

>>> Next…

Posted on

Chopped Liver

March 12, 1997 – Chopped Liver

The night before last I couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety over the unknown effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Last night I couldn’t sleep because I was waiting for side effects, which didn’t come! So today, I really exhausted. I hope to get my energy up by the time we leave.

I spent the time listening to guided imagery tapes, Deepak Chopra, and surfing the news groups on the web. I had an interesting query from a reader of the news group, alt.support.cancer.

The second day of 5FU and cisplatin was similar to the first. This time I had a chopped chicken liver sandwich for lunch from Max’s! It went well again, although I fell a little exhausted.

After the chemotherapy, I had another guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport. The session was interrupted by an extremely urgent need to pee. Before then, I was visualizing how the chemotherapy and radiation were helping me either revert the cancer cells back to normal cells, or at their choice, bubble up and degenerate into something that could be easily eliminated by the blood stream, urine, and feces. I got some really good images to work with in the future.

We stopped by M. C.’s house to see the girls before the fly off to Palm Springs for the weekend while I recover from my three doses of chemotherapy and four doses of radiation.

I spent a lot of time trying to fix a bug (work for money), so there’s not much more to say. The fact that I feel like fixing is actually saying a lot.

>>> Next…

Posted on

Jewish Penicillin

March 11, 1997 – Jewish Penicillin

We arrived at the Marin Oncology center at 8:10. Here it is now 9:03 and we’ve just been sitting around. Naturally, they had us down for 9:00, not 8:00. So now I’m really getting restless. I’m not comfortable starting a mind story, not knowing how far I’ll get or if I’ll be able to even begin. I tried working on Practical Intuition, but the same considerations play. The man next to me is getting his i. v. already. I guess that he’s been here before.

Last night was fairly difficult. I seemed to sleep fairly well in stages, but due to all of the hydration, I was up many times. Finally, at 3:00, I went downstairs and did a little writing. Next came a tape, and by the time it was time to wake up, I was ready to sleep.

I haven’t been that preoccupied with today’s treatment plan, but I still felt unable to concentrate on my breath. No one can tell what kind of response I’m going to have to the chemo, and I’m a little worried. To top it off, I have two rounds of radiation also today.

I had expected to be able to listen to guided imagery tapes, but with all the commotion going around here, I preferred to listen to the classical CD’s I brought. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy brought on a lot of emotion. I also listened to Dvorak’s Piano Quintet and Shubert’s Trout Quintet. These pieces of music are so calming and beautiful. I use my computer as my portable CD player.

Once the 5FU and cisplatin where into my blood stream, I felt a few minor discomforts, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad – just like Shipley predicted. I can probably have a decent afternoon. As soon as the cisplatin was finished, I got an urge for matzoth ball soup from Max’s! When I was growing up, this was called, “Jewish penicillin!”

I started having pains in my stomach and needed to pee again! The pains didn’t last long and I continued to pee frequently. At around 1:15 P. M., an hour and a half after the cisplatin was totally in, I went down for my first radiation treatment. Although I was a little nervous, I came through it OK. Within the next half-hour, we were back upstairs, getting the i. v. out and on our way home. Although I felt very tired, there were no other side effects. I was advised to take a sedative tonight to get some sleep, but now that the unknown is known, will I need it?

The second radiation treatment went really well. I was able to be relaxed and visualize the radiation helping the cancer cells to mutate back to healthy cells normal cells, or, if they choose, to self-destruct. This seemed to be really effective. The radiologist placed tattoos for the spots for focusing the beam and then explained the computerized care that I was getting.

>>> Next…

Practical Intuition

Posted on

La Boheme

March 7, 1997 – La Boheme

Today I have a busy schedule. I see Dr. Gullion in the morning, meet with co-workers in the early afternoon, and travel to Capitola for my son’s performance in La Boheme in the evening. We have planned to spend the night in Capitola. I have prepared a list of questions for Dr. Gullion.

Once again, Dr. Gullion showed up with a heart pin on his shirt pocket. I believe that he is quite open to what Andy Weil calls integrative medicine. We spoke about all the issues on the list and the thing that struck me the most was his willingness to allow guided imagery and massage along with chemotherapy. He said that this is what they were trying to do at the Marin Cancer Institute.

As far as Keith Block is concerned, Dr. Gullion thought that with Michael Broffman and all that I was doing, it amounts to the same thing. He said that he had always had difficulty getting Dr. Block to be specific about what he is doing, and that he had proprietary supplement preparations that no one else had. I felt confident that I was on the right path because of Michael Broffman, Marty Rossman, Van Vu, Elyse, and the combination of all the other things I am doing.

As far as the chemotherapy is concerned, he was no more worried about my response than Dr. Shipley. He had given cisplatin and 5FU together before, but not combined with radiation and not in the doses that I will be getting.

After our visit with Dr.Gullion, we headed down to Network General and then to Santa Cruz. We checked in to the Apple Lane Inn and took a nap before meeting M. and G. for dinner in Capitola before the opera. M. seemed quite relaxed in spite of having one of the leading roles in the production. I was feeling quite proud of him and also felt excited to be able to be there. You may recall that on my first visit to Dr. Neuwirth’s office when he described my illness, I wanted to be able to see La Boheme.

La Bohem, SF Opera

The performance was rather good for the first performance of a new opera company. Of course my son had the best male performance as Marcello, Rudolpho’s friend! The woman who played Mussetta was also excellent. But the orchestra and chorus left something to be desired. All in all, it was very enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone living near Santa Cruz.

>>> Next…

Posted on

Cancerport

February 27, 1997 – Cancerport

Cancer Port is a support group that meets on Thursdays from 11:30 A. M. until 1:00 P. M. in Greenbrae. The purpose of the group is the emotional support of its members, which varies from time to time. On this particular occasion, there were approximately twenty-five men and women with various types of cancer, including several support people and three group facilitators. There were no other people with bladder cancer in the group.

When it became my turn to talk, I explained how I was diagnosed and what sort of treatment I was about to undergo. I talked about my fears of still having cancer eight weeks after the start of chemotherapy. Seeing what other people suffered with made me feel compassionate for their situations and increased my desire to share the research I had been doing since my diagnosis.

I left the meeting with two important things to do based on what people said. One of them was to contact Dr. Shipley to find out what the side effects of the cisplatin and 5-FU were, and how to counteract them. The other was to make an appointment with Dr. Van Vu for next Sunday. I felt under a lot of stress until these could be accomplished. Instead of breathing into the experience of tension, I drove home, had lunch and only after I made the phone calls did I feel any better.

Later in the afternoon I had an appointment with Dr. Barbara Rose Billings, a special healer who provides “Integration Therapy” which is a “multi-faceted and individualized to help give you what you need to unleash the healing power within you. Its strength lies in its ability to produce profound results by integrating your essence into the healing process.” I had an extremely healing experience with her, in recognizing what I want to do, tuning into my “belly breath”, and being recognized for my own healing abilities.

>>> Next…

Posted on

The Big Surprise!

February 6, 1997 – The Big Surprise!

The next morning, my wife and I had another helpful conversation with Sara Huang. Once again, she was emphasizing the possibility of saving my bladder, but we were predisposed to think about surgery.

Then came our consultation with Dr. Gullion who had the tumor board results from early in the morning. To our shock, amazement and surprise, the tumor board came to the decision that I could take my choice between radical cystectomy and the Shipley treatment! They felt that the entire visible tumor had been removed by Dr. Neuwirth and my chances were the same with either treatment. We were stunned! We had no idea that this would be the result of the tumor board! Now what was I going to do?

One thing was clear: I didn’t want abominable surgery! After speaking with Dr. Belknap about the results of the tumor board, I received a call from J. W., a close friend of mine from my enneagram centers group. She had gone through surgery and chemotherapy for ovarian cancer and was finally beginning to feel more like herself. I asked her what she thought of my two options, and she said that abdominal surgery was horrible. She would vote for the chemo and radiation. I liked her reasoning and knew that she was speaking personal experience.

Joan also gave me advice in the following areas. She suggested that I check with my insurance company to see if I was covered for a social worker to come in the house and help out when I was going through the worse part of chemotherapy. She also said the cisplatin was very hard on the kidneys and that I should allow for eight hours of rehydration. She prepared me for short-term memory loss during chemotherapy, and wanted to make sure that I had a cocktail of drugs. The typical Shipley treatment is to apply cisplatin with methyltrexate and vinblastine together, so I may not have to worry about this. However, she was careful to emphasize that I should carefully check what is being fed into me because there have been many cases of chemotherapy overdoses! She cautioned me to stay away from anti-nausea drugs and use sea-bands instead. She recommended getting a hold of the National Cancer Institute (1-800-4-CANCER) for specific information about the drugs I’ll be taking and how to best deal with the side effects. She recommended taking caraloe and aloe vera combination with vitamin E and suggested that I read, “The Chemotherapy Survival Guide.”

By the time I finished my conversation with Joan, I was on my way to my decision not to have radical cystectomy.

The Chemotherapy Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Get Through Treatment

>>> Next…

Copyright © 2004-2018, Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.