Chemo cancelled again

Hi 

I’m really sorry to hear everything your husband is going through right now it is really horrid stuff and I hope that you’re both taking care of yourselves as much as possibly and I’m sending my best wishes to you both right now x

I know exactly how you feel about gaps in treatment causing a lot of stress, it sounds like the chemo wouldn’t be the best for him right now and similar stuff happened with mum where they said you have to wait you can’t have it right now. She had a 4 week delay before starting any chemo after her diagnosis as the standard pathology which tells you if it’s her2 positive etc took a while, and then after 4 cycles (she had 7) she had another 3 week break while consultants were on holiday/ waiting for scans etc. after that she had another 3 week gap after cycle 7 when she wasn’t allowed more chemo due to side effects. I remember during these breaks (apart from the last one) I was freaking out and we were all scared emailing and chasing whoever we could to say like it’s been a while please can she have the treatment. 
We don’t know the breaks/ gaps made a difference really but what I can say the treatment plan was basically unaltered and scan results confirmed that it shouldn’t have had an effect on the plan, or the size of the tumour. My mums surgeon said basically before treatment it had likely been there for a year or 2 and that “a few weeks without treatment is fine” but “a month or two” is where I’d start getting “more” concerned. What I’d say is it wouldn’t hurt to get in touch with the CNS and tell them your concerns and ask for a prospective plan, when they think chemo can resume and how they’ll monitor everything. 
sending lots of love ️ 

Update,My husband is now in hospital as it was thought he had a blood clot from having the picc line fitted.Turns out after a scan he doesn’t have a clot,but all his bloods are coming up wrong,also they are now thinking the one dose of chemo he had has caused all this trouble.We had a meeting with his oncologist before he was admitted last Thursday where she said maybe it was time to think of not having more chemo and just go home and spend quality time with family.He has said he wants to give chemo another go as he only had one 2 week session.We have another meeting next week with her,but she did take on board what he said.So he is in hospital getting his bloods sorted and has had a ct scan which we are waiting results of.We now have to wait until next week to see what happens and will she allow him to have more chemotherapy ,has anyone else had a bad reaction to chemo from their kidneys and then been able to have more chemotherapy.We are terrified this is it as we really haven’t started to process it properly as he was only diagnosed in June

Hi Buffandflo 

I am really sorry, this whole situation sounds really awful for you both, especially at the start of chemo which is one of the scariest and most stressful times.

My mum wasn’t in exactly the same situations but she did have a kidney issue (which seems to be an ongoing problem) but I think this stemmed from an infection that came up during surgery… do they think it was chemo or the infection causing it? I know that chemo weakens your immune system and maybe there’s an injection (pegfilgrastim/filgrastim) which might help with that, if he didn’t have it before. Also the chemo can definitely do a lot of damage, to the kidneys and rest of the body, maybe they could switch up the chemo, some people get folfiri (or lower doses) or if he could have immunotherapy instead, if your oncologist has mentioned this to you as well?

I’m really sorry if this isn’t very helpful, what I can say is my mum had a hit to her liver more so than kidneys during chemo , but it did recover with time, but damage seemed to get worse with each cycle- taking longer for the blood work to get normal. They also say you need to drink a lot of water during chemo to help filter out the drugs, otherwise the drugs remain in your system much longer and do more damage to healthy cells too. 
There might be others on the forum who are a bit more knowledgeable about this than me, but I’m wishing you both the best and really hope this gets sorted out for you both soon xx

Thank you for your reply,very helpful any information is good just now for when we get to see the consultant.Hopefully will get the ct results today and see what is happening next.My husband is hoping if it shows some shrinkage they might decide one more chemo session could happen.He just doesn’t want to give up without a fight and feels as they were planning to change from capox to folfox it could be worth a go to see what happens maybe his kidneys wouldn’t be as affected as she also had said that it would be reduced by 25%.So will see what happens today