What does Chemo Therapy do, and how will it effect me?

This is my personal experience that I'm going through right now. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor on aug 29 and operated on to remove tumor on sept 1 of this year. Oct. 21, I started my imrt radiation treatments. I started my chemo pills...not through iv, the night before. The doc should prescribe you temodar, which is about the only chemo pill that passes through the blood brain barrier. It will make your brain more suseptible to the radiation. I am doing imrt for 5 days a week for 6 weeks and taking my chemo pills 7 days a week for 6 weeks. Afterwards, I will have another mri. After a short break, I will take a higher dose of chemo pills for 5 days a month for 6 months. They figure your chemo dosage by your weight and other things. I'm taking a pretty low dose and not having any problems whatsoever with my chemo or radiation. Have you had surgery to remove the tumor or is it inoperable? I wish you the best.

In reference to the post above mine, no chemo drip for brain tumors. This ain't the old days! Also the localized beam in above post is pretty accurate. I have a mask the nurses latch to the table to keep my head completely still. My radiation treatment takes all of 5 minutes and I'm done. However, it's not one beam shooting into your brain. They will map out various areas; I get 6 zaps in various minute locations, that I can't even feel. Please make sure you find a good radiation clinic with high tech equipment to get the best treatment. I drive 1 1/2 hours one way every day for a 5 minute treatment.

Oh yeah, I also have zofran and compazine. If you have good insurance, go with the zofran...even the generic is expensive. The compazine was $4 at walmart. Zofran's good, no side effects. I haven't taken the compazine yet.

Chemo therapy is where you will have a strong drug given through your veins that will attack your tumor.

Unfortunately, the side effects of chemo therapy are that it will make your hair fall out and it will make you feel sick. Although the drug is supposed to attack the tumor, it is very strong and it also affects normal cells that rapidly divide - like hair cells and cells that line your intestines. The hair falling out is a small price to pay for trying to get better. To combat sickness, your doctor will give you medications such as Reglan or Zofran to help with any nausea or feelings of sickness.

The radiation treatment will most likely be a very localized radiation beam aimed at your head. What they will do is fit you with a special mask which has many points on it and then scan your head under a CT scanner to see inside your head. The points help to map out the position of your brain inside your head so that they can aim the beam at the right place without exposing other parts of your brain to radiation.

If you need more information, please feel free to e-mail me at anytime. I'm busy but will try to get back

One more thing, this will be a tough journey. But you can do it.

You will never get better if you don't think you will get better. ALWAYS, and I MEAN ALWAYS, NO MATTER HOW BAD IT MIGHT GET....THINK "I AM GETTING BETTER," "MY BODY IS FIGHTING THIS OFF," "I AM GETTING BETTER AND MY TREATMENT IS WORKING" Say that atleast 10 times before going to sleep everyday.