22nd September, 2018



Treatment is underway at Victoria Hospital. The current regimen is given on a three week cycle, as usual, but with only 3-4 days in-hospital, thankfully. They're shooting Nick up with plenty of hydromorphone, so he's right out of it. Nick's hands are still pretty much incapable of gripping anything, so he needs help with dressing, eating and, er, self-medication (thanks, Alex!)

The new chemo regime Nick's on is not platinum-based. Dr. Potvin figures that Nick's had so much cisplatin that the cancer is now resistant to it. So, the cocktail consists of four drugs, most of which Nick - and his cancer - has never seen before. Let's hope it kicks the cancer's ass once and for all. We don't know what the odds of this are - there just aren't sufficient data to give a probability of success. We just have to wait and see what happens.

Nick had his head MRI and thoracic CT scans today, and we'll meet with Dr. Potvin early tomorrow to discuss the results. We're praying that the scans show some potential for quick recovery from the neurological symptoms.

We also met up with an exceptionally articulate young radiation oncologist who discussed a course of thoracic radiotherapy to halt the lung tumour bleeding. Not sure if they'll elect to do more head radiation - guess this depends upon the MRI results.

Tanja and I took reluctant leave of our fantastic colleagues and students on Friday. The semester had been off to a terrific start. Rats.

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