The Drugs - for you medical types

Some of you have asked about the chemo and side-affect drugs, so here's what I know:

Chemo drug 1: Cisplatin

This is a heavy metal compound containing platinum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisplatin

Chemo drug 2: 5 Fluorouracil or "5FU"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorouracil

The combination of these drugs is a common one for the treatment of many cancers and they have been used for many years.

There are some more modern alternatives, but these tend to be administered as part of clinical trials. There are two reasons that I am not involved in these - firstly, many clinical trials have to be conducted "double blind", which means that neither the patient or the oncologist are aware if they are on the drug or the placebo - which is not a good thing when pursuing a curative strategy - you really want to know that you are on something that is proven to work!

Secondly, the patient needs to be in a "known state", so the uncertainty of that one small nodule I have could throw doubt on the results of the trial.

Neither of these are of concern to my oncologist, she wants me to be on the combination above because she feels that it is the most appropriate for the treatment under the circumstances, and I'm happy to be on a proven treatment path which is not proving too arduous at the moment.

Side Effect Drugs:

The main side effects with the above drugs are nausea-related. Unfortunately for some of you, I very probably won't be losing my hair on this occasion, so no mickey-taking opportunities there! :)

1. Pyridoxine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyridoxine This is a vitimin B6 compound to help with the blood balance (white vs red blood cells) during the treatment

2. Metoclopramide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metoclopramide This is one of the antiemetics (anti-nausea). It's been around for some time but appears to be effective. The Wiki entry suggests that it has been superceded by Ondansetron, which I also have.

3. Ondansetron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondansetron I have some of these to use as "top ups". It's not part of my daily regime, but I can take one in between regular "pill stops" if I get nausea symptoms. I took one at 5am this morning for example when I woke up for a wee and felt nauseaus, and it sorted me out nicely.

4. Dexamethasone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone Although this is a steroid, it is used to augment the antiemetic treatment in combination with the other drugs above. I am on a "reducing" dose of this, so steadily phased out during the period of the chemo cycle

5. Omeprazole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omeprazole This is a Proton Pump Inhibitor, which basically switches off the acid production in the stomach, preventing any further acid damage.

6. Warfarin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin Many of you will be familiar with this drug. It is an anti-clotting drug to minimise the likelihood of blood clots forming. As my PICC line is a small tube inserted quite far into a vein, they need to be sure that clots do not form at the end of the tube, so the Warfarin is to help prevent this.

7. Emend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aprepitant This is one of the newer drugs which wouldn't have been available to people like my mother who suffered badly with nausea during chemo. I only had it for three days at the start of the treatment because it is aimed particularly at the initial effects of the Cisplatin dosage