Can the chemotherapy cure be worse than the disease?

From my last post you would think that the Sunitinib treatment was going ok. That turned out to be misleading. After the pill on the 28th day I expected my 14 days off to be a time of rejuvenation, a time of returning to normal. Instead the side effects of nausea and physical weakness and loss of appetite intensified during that time! That was very disappointing.

I travelled to Yellowknife for my next appointment with a Dr John Walker on Thursday February 15. During the same week Sandra had a colonoscopy procedure so it was quite a week. Walker told me that is was not uncommon for the time off from the Sutent to experience worse side effects!! But do the medical specialists tell you this in advance? No way. No indication at all. However, when I told Walker about how serious the side effects of nausea and no appetite had become he decided to put me on another chemotherapy drug called Pazopanib, which is more expensive (which is why they don't prescribe it at the beginning) but targets the tumours in the same way. It takes a minimum of an extra week to get the new prescription at our pharmacy in Inuvik, and I hope to start it on Monday the 26th.

Well -- here goes my rant. No doctor or nurse ever told me that the nausea medication that is recommended for chemotherapy drugs, referred to as Ondansetron, works by knocking out melatonin, which in my case started to contribute to quite severe depression. Which then snowballed to more nausea, weight loss, and loss of appetite. So today I am going completely off this crazy thing especially because the nausea is not bad today. This morning my weight had fallen to 165lb (which I haven't see since high school) and my blood pressure had fallen to 95/63 which was leaving me quite faint. But with a return of appetite this morning, I have been able to get some strength back.

So there you have it. And oh yes, it is misrepresentation to call Sutent or Pazopanib immunotherapy. Immunotherapy drugs actually train your own immune system to target the cancer. That is not the case with Sutent, which is a targeted chemotherapy. If the Pazopanib stops working to tackle the tumour growth, immunotherapy could be the next avenue of treatment.

But what I hope is that my next CT scan, which won't take place until April now I am told, shows that the tumours have shrunk. Apparently some people have to stay on the chemotherapy drugs like Sutent or Pazopanib for months. I am not sure I can survive that. I am hopeful that the next scan will show improvement and that I can have a rest from drugs to concentrate on the other mind-emotion-spirit modes of healing.

Another nasty side effect of the Sutent was to make me so weak and to make my brain feel toxic and unresponsive so it is very hard to even have a positive healing attitude in the midst of all that. My next oncology appointment is scheduled for March 19 by teleconference. Sandra will have to take time off to be in on the call, because with my deafness I will miss some of the important information.

I want to say to all of you readers that I am humbled and I truly appreciate all the prayers that you have said go up to God on my behalf, both for me and for Sandra too. It is very difficult to go through all this stuff on human strength alone. I continue to desire more joy in my journey, because joy is essential for any lasting spiritual healing. I always go back to the prophet Joel, where in verse 12 of chapter 1 he says that all the fruit trees of the field were withered because joy had withered away from the sons of men. And I am convinced that joy can only come when I am spiritually sound, so that alone keeps me busy. I need to do more sincere praying and meditating to help me along.