Tuesday, January 5, 2010

so i did it


chemo 3.5 - i have finally gotten them to give me a number to the end of the chemo and to agree to stop giving me steroids if i can deal with the nausea.

i got scared and bullied into believing that i needed this treatment. i decided to let them give to me after the nurses came and discussed side effects in great detail. the problem is that they have nothing - no evidence or statistics, even anecdotally that any woman they have treated has left the chemo treatment and died.

why? because no one has left the treatment at memorial sloan kettering.

as my doctor - who is a woman, i should add - said, the only people she's seen who have died of this cancer were people who had stopped treatment (elsewhere, in other hospitals) because they were too poor to afford it and by the time she got to them, the cancer had developed a resistance to the drugs and they were unable to cure it using other drugs.

however, while this treatment - EMA (etoposide, methotrexate and actinomycin) once a week and CO (cyclophosphamide and vincristine) the second week is successful 90-95% in curing the cancer, only 79-72% of the people (in the studies i've read from the charing cross hospital in london) survive because 20% die from secondary infections developed due to the chemotherapy.

anyway, i am less exhausted from the treatment than i am from arguing with nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers and of course, my family.

now drinking green juice, taking vitamin c, d, flax seed oil and co-q 10 in the hopes of protecting the cells that remain alive.

2 comments:

  1. godspeed to you, ameena. if you want to talk to my sister, who is a naturopathic doctor in portland, let me know. she would love to give health advice to a friend of mine...

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  2. How do you feel about all of this? Are you relieved? Are you at peace with your decision to end the chemo?

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