1. If there is a planned surgery, doctors think there is hope for longer term survival. They would not have a compromised, weak person who only has two months to live through surgery. Surgery is not easy.
2. If there is a planned oncology team, doctors think there is hope for treatment or hope for palliative care to keep a person comfortable when treatment is not an option.
3. Radiation means they know where the cancer is -- there is no guess work, they can attack it directly.
4. Radiation treatments are typically outpatient treatments. They last between 10-30 minutes each.
5. Chemotherapy IV sessions where one goes to the hospital for roughly 6-8 hours a session are completed for cancer that is living in the body somewhere we don't know so let's kill everything. Each person has a different 'cocktail' of chemotherapy types in the IV bag that slowly drips into the bloodstream. As little as one or more bags can be used in that session depending on the cancer type, guess of location, intensity of the medication and how fast or slow it needs to be delivered. This also is typically an outpatient treatment.
6. Chemo pills are administered also as a more targeted approach
Whether it is the traditional IV approach or pill approach with chemotherapy, the oncologist is the one to determine dosing types, amounts, and numbers of sessions. Sometimes it is one oncologist who specializes in one type of cancer; sometimes it is more than one who specialize in other regions.
If an area is not treated with radiation or chemotherapy, it is due to size, location, whether treatments for one area of the body might also shrink that other cancer. My sister-in-law had a caner in her brain that was mostly removed; however they needed to leave some behind due to location. She has been living with that remainder cancer for the past 15 years. Another friend had a smaller tumor of cancer that shrunk with treatments to another area. And numerous breast cancer sisters with metastatic cancer had combinations.
The doctors on ones team will inform the patient -- hopefully with all questions addressed. Sometimes one needs to be the advocate and ask more questions until they know enough. There is no rule of thumb. It is unique to each person. In my case, I was fortunate to have an advocate attend sessions with me who was a breast cancer sister who was also a neurologist. I learned from her there is no dumb question, there is no limit of questions, and sharing of information is helpful for all of us.
additional sources to visit:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/radiation-therapy/about/pac-20385162
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/24323-chemotherapy-drugs
https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/oral-chemotherapy
No comments:
Post a Comment