Chemo scheduled - and probably no wigs needed

Today I met with my oncologist and got my schedule for my chemo. Overall, again, it was a positive meeting. He did a physical exam and once again everything appears to be healing quite well. In a bit of a surprise, my blood pressure after the surgery has been better than it was before the surgery.

We talked about the second tumor that had been found on my heart. He said it was quite rare to have two types of cancer, but it had shown up on the PET scan, just everyone thought it was the same as my lung cancer. He also said there were some areas on my lung that we initially thought were cancer that after the surgery turned out not to be. So again, more positives because the cancer was not as wide spread as we originally thought.

We then started to talk about the chemo. I will be doing what is known as adjuvant therapy - this means that I will be having chemo after surgery to destroy any cancer cells that remain. I will be taking 2 types of chemo together, one session every 21 days and there will be 4 cycles. The two types are pemetrexed and cisplatin. With these two types of chemo, there is very little chance of hair loss, so I probably will not be getting to wear my cool wigs :(

With this type of chemo they think that overall I will be able to maintain a pretty normal work and play schedule. There will be times I am tired and worn out, and so I need to be careful I don't over do it, but the other side effects seem to be minimal, since so much can be covered with medication.

They did say that even though the actual chemo will only take about 45 minutes, there is a lot of stuff to do before and after the chemo, esp. hydration. So I should plan on 6-8 hour days when I do chemo.

I will be meeting with the oncologist one more time before I start - on May 17th. Then a week later, on May 24th, I will have my first session of chemo.

After my 4 cycles of chemo I will meet with the radiation oncologist and start that process as well, but that isn't for 3 months, so I haven't learned much about it as well.

I learned quite a bit today, and have lots more reading to do, but overall it was another good appointment. I am highly motivated to do this and get any remain cancer cells that I have in me gone! So three weeks, and the next step begins!