Monique -- yes Cliff can advise best on your questions -- he went through all of that. I am chemo only, so cannot really be of much assistance ... except perhaps in the music part of it. I am not exactly sure just what that last sentence is, but let me jump on it in case I can help.

I have a web site that has music on it intended to comfort those who are suffering with cancer. It is called:
http://UncleDavesJukebox.com/

There is a button on the left that contains secular songs labeled "Cancer Victims Inspiration Songs." There is another one that is called Spiritual Songs, which has religious songs on it -- I am adding to that one on a weekly basis.

I had an iPod when I was in the hospital with spiritual songs on it and it helped me tremendously especially when I could not sleep. You would be surprise how often you actually fall asleep and wake up and do not realize you have been asleep. Well, when you are listening to music like this and you wake up and a couple songs have gone by, then you know that you were sleeping. That alone brings comfort.

If he likes these, please feel free to download anything on the site. The popular songs are things from the 60s mostly, some from the 50s, so they might not be things that he would like so much. You can make an album by downloading them and putting them on an iTunes playlist and it will continually play.

I do ask one favor -- do NOT listen to these on your laptop speakers -- you must get some larger speakers or ear phones or ear pieces to get the complete sound. Laptop speakers just cannot capture the sounds.

If you have any problems please let me know.

I hope this helps -- dave
dbrown@cs.ua.edu
http://BibleThought.org/

Will be praying for Sal's quick recovery and that the sct goes extremely well. Keir did not have radiation so Cliff will be able to answer those questions best. Keir had different chemo as well. He is now on - I think, need to keep better track - Day 40. Sal will soon be past this milestone and on his way. He will be in my prayers daily, and contact me any time.

Monique,

I am glad that Sal's infection is on the mend, but sorry that he had to go through that. It makes us grateful to our immune systems to realize how much bad stuff is done away with by those cells.

The worst thing about radiation was the thought of going through it and not the actual process. We are always told to stay out of the sun and cringe when we hear about nuclear meltdowns, yet here we are getting radiated. As my son would say, "whatever!"

Sal is getting the same 3x a day regimen that I did. That was more of an annoyance than a real difficulty. I have to say that I may be atypical, because I never vomited from any of my treatments, and so I got through the radiation in one piece. They gave me a substance called Palifermin, which coats the tongue (in a somewhat unpleasant way) and prevents mouth sores. What it cannot prevent are THROAT sores, which I got as well as discomfort in my esophagus. There was one week during which time I had to be fed by vein, because swallowing was painful. I have no idea how much of that was due to the chemo that I was also getting or the radiation. They gave me a button to self-administer pain killers. I am generally not one to use such things, but I did at times, when the pain was annoying, Studies have shown that self-administration of pain killers (e.g., morphine) results in a much lower amount of stuff being administered.

I got a different regimen than Sal will be getting. I know that I got cyclophosphamide and ultimately ATG before transplant, but I don't remember what else (don't you just love the way I keep myself ill-informed - it is a defense mechanism!). The thing you need to tell Sal is that no matter what they throw at you at the end, YOU CAN JUST TASTE that transplant coming - and the recovery that makes all of this worthwhile.

I am not kidding that I whistled (when my throat was bad) and sang (when it wasn't) along with the most outrageous catalogue of rock music you can imagine. I didn't care what anyone thought, and it turn out that they got a kick out of it. I don't know if Sal will be getting testicular radiation (I did :( ). Although I guess at 61 and with 3 kids and a wife almost 60 that I will not be having any more children. LOL. However, if he does get that last fun thing (no one told me), let him now that the Leydig cells that make testosterone are very macho and thumb their noses at radiation. Result: no effect on the big T.

Monique, from now on I will call you Unique. Your notes just ooze love for Sal. That alone will get him through the rest of this. Then on to good health. You both deserve that.

Cliff

Monique,

Thank you so much for the update on Sal. Although I have no experience with TBI as I am chemo only, several of my friends at East 8 (AML floor at LDS Hospital) getting BMT while I was getting Induction received it. We all walked the halls together daily and they all seemed to tolerate it much like Cliff-a non event.

Praying for you an Sal.

Julie

As Cliff said, I think my wife psyched her self out about tbi. When she was done, she said it wasn't as bad as she thought, rather boring actually. She has not had any mouth or throat sores, one nurse said it was a kind of chemo that did that which my wife did not receive. She received a double dose of a different drug because she is relatively young.

Her skin is pretty red and irritated but aside from that, it's been side effect free, so far...