Marathon Chemos

I am so ashamed that I did not get any pictures of the staff at Beth Israel.  The Radiation Oncology people were just wonderful to John, Doctor Mancias and Nurse Nancy Salmanowich treated John with great tenderness and as close to love as I have ever seen.  I will always be grateful to them.  John did ten sessions with them, targeting his right hip and sacral vertebrae.  On the tenth session, they decided that his right hip was in danger of breaking if attention was not given to it.  Since there were no vital organs in the way, he had ten zaps of radiation on his left hip and his last one on the right on the same day.

 

Dr. Robinson, Mary Kelley and the staff at Harvard Vanguard at Kenmore in Boston were also very good to John and I.  It is unfortunate that the treatment was such an aggressive one.  The sessions were so long that my nerves were frazzled, and when mine are frazzled, I am afraid everyone else's get frazzled too.

We arrived around 8AM for each of the three sessions John agreed to.  With blood tests, lab reports and hours and hours of Paclitaxel(Taxol) and Carboplatin(May Apple) IVs, Benadryl, Steroids, Saline solution etc...we did not get out of the place till after 6PM and had an hour ride home.  John slept and did not seem to mind the whole thing, but I was a wreck.  After one day of little effect, John really felt the effects of the chemo.  He had almost two weeks of problems as a result, and a week of slow recovery, only to go back in again for another session..

In the end, a pet scan showed that there had been no effect on the tumors.  John was thrilled to drop the Chemo, and really seemed better for a time after that.

 

John with Anne Marie Worth at Harvard Vanguard in Boston.