I just wanted to give an update on what we recently found out about why my husband has been having so much pain while being on Xeloda.
He had a CAT scan last week and that showed that his cancer is stable - no improvement in the tumors at all just stable which in and of itself is a good thing.
However, he had been having severe abdominal and right flank pain continuously while on Xeloda. Today we were told by the oncologist that he had chemo toxicity from the Xeloda and that is why he had such unbearable pain. It all makes sense as when he was on systemic chemo he never had any of this pain and once he started the Xeloda the pain was increased and when he was on his off week he felt a little better.
They will no longer be giving him Xeloda and now we are going to try Erbitux with Camptosar. He has had Camptosar before but not the Erbitux. This will be a 6 week cycle with Camptosar and Erbitux once a week for four weeks and then Erbitux once a week for 2 weeks. He has been scheduled up until March. He will be starting this new regimen on 1/3/08.
Hopefully, this will be a better chemo treatment for him to tolerate. He is very anxious to get back to work and we are both hoping that this will enable him to do so.
I'll keep you up-to-date as things progress.
Kathy