My husband did 12 rounds of Folfox with the full dose of Oxaliplatin and then two more rounds of Folfox with a 50% reduction in Oxaliplatin before dropping the Oxaliplatin altogether. He hated to drop it because he was seeing very good results with his Folfox/Avastin/Nivolumab regime but his neuropa...

I don't know that I'd give up a treatment plan that was working for a Phase I clinical trial. It is my understanding that Phase I trials are conducted to determine the safety of a drug at various dosing levels as well as the side effects. Personally I would stay on the current plan until there was p...

@boxhill - No, no other conditions which might make a platelet count of 128 or 90 risky. Thankfully all we are dealing with is his rectal cancer, no other complications. He is in a clinical trial though, and it might very well be the trial has guidelines for platelet count. I know we have to keep hi...

I've been concerned about my husband's platelet count which gets lower every visit, is it currently at 128 which is out of the normal range.

His team has explained that they aren't concerned until it hits 90, at which point they will give him an IV transfusion prior to his chemo session.

We also have Anthem BCBS (GA) and are getting far too experienced with the appeal process! Sometimes I feel like my husband is the cancer warrior and I am the insurance warrior. Do you have an ACA plan or an employee group plan? If you have an employee group plan, I would strongly recommend asking y...

We did not experience a several week wait for my husband to be seen at Dana Farber. My husband has self-referred to Dana Farber twice, once in 2008 for Prostate Cancer and again in 2019 for Rectal Cancer, and both times his appointment was within four days of calling them. We are fortunate that our ...

Momserati -

We are so sorry for your loss.

May God rest his soul in peace.

Love and strength to you and your family.

- Carl and Deborah

My husband's 5-FU infusion via pump runs 46 hours.

The nurses taught me how to disconnect the pump and then use a saline solution to flush the port. If this option is available to you then it might further save him time.

I would be very interested to know if you are able to track any other lab tests as indicators of chemo effectiveness. We are just beginning this journey and after only three chemo sessions my husband's CEA has gone from 14.7 to 3.1. While I'd like to believe the chemo is working this well, I worry t...