Husband Cant tolerate Chemotherapy

Hi Kathie 

What a horrible build up to Christmas you have had to endure. I had my last pre op chemo over Christmas six years ago, so at much the same stage as your husband.

 I was T2N0M0 and 5cm. I had three rounds of ECX before surgery, and I was fine with only minor side effects plus hair loss, but the post surgery chemotherapy was a completely different story! Two days into the first round I was too ill to continue and spent the next 10 days in hospital.

Different people, with differing fitness and at different stages in their illness or recovery react quite differently to chemo. Some of it could be dose related or just down to the way you are made, who knows - certainly not the medics! Otherwise they wouldn’t put us through this. I heard somewhere that the more poorly the chemo makes you the more effective it is being. I’m not sure if this is true, but if your husband is now swallowing and eating well then it must have had an dramatic effect on the tumour, and more especially on any random cells that might have been around.

Other people on this forum chose not to have any chemotherapy before or after their surgery and are doing very well some years later. You husband’s staging has shown nothing in the lymph nodes or any mets so things are looking good for surgery and a cancer free life after. As you say you’ll get confirmation after the MDT meeting. 

Try to be positive this New Year, and think ahead about how different you will both be feeling in 12 months time with all this behind you.

Hi Kathie, sorry to hear about your husband. Try to remain positive, I was diagnosed in July 2016 as T3 N2 M0 staging and didn't have any treatment prior to or after surgery. I had the surgery in October 2016 and I am still here to tell the tale. Good luck and kind regards Frank.