Dear Wilke - welcome to the site and sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but it's not too dissimilar to mine (I too have Stage II, but did exhibit some earlish symptoms). I had the Whipple surgery and once I'd recovered sufficiently from that and a couple of liver abscesses (probably resulting from contimination during the surgery), I began the IV Gemzar infusions. My initial course was 6 infusions over about an 8 week period. At the time, I had a PICC line (due to the need for 3 weeks of daily IV antibiotics to cure the abscesses - so I just left it in). I note this because now that I'm in the final IV Gemzar portion of my treatments, I didn't have the line in initially and use of the IVs caused my veins to "blow" (meaning that it was not only difficult to insert an IV line - requiring multiple "sticks", but also the Gemzar really stings when going into a small vein). During my first rounds of Gemzar, I didn't have many side-effects (other than issues of a low white blood cell count) and the IV anti-nausea medication I received just prior to the Gemzar really helped with keey nausea at bay). I didn't want to eat much, food odors really bothered me, and I was much more tired than usual, but it wasn't too bad. I also note fyi that the antidote for the low blood count problem is usually an injection of Neupogen (from which I didn't have any real side effects or pain - but this one is less potent and long-lasting) and Neulasta (which resulted in some rather severe bone and muscle aches for several days, mitigated somewhat by taking Claritin a couple of hours before the injection).
Where the difficulties came in were with my 12 infusion Gemzar treatments that followed the very difficult course of radiation/oral chemo (for 43 days - 5 days a week for radiation, 7 days a week for chemo). So, if you need this second round of Gemzar, be ready for a totally different set of side effects, stemming principally from on-going effects from the radiation (especially burning of the internal digestive track and organs - that can cause serious pain when eating and drinking anything). Effrects from radiation are definitely cumulative, so be ready for this. For the throat and upper digestive area pain, doctors prescribed a liquid called Carafate and something called "magic mouthwash" (and these helped somewhat with eating and drinking in the sense that it didn't hurt so much to swallow). If you do require the second round of IV Gemzar, I'd strongly urge you to use a PICC line. I didn't do this and after about 6 infusions, finding a vein became nearly impossible and the whole process was very painful. I've had the PICC line re-installed.
Hope this is helpful, but please let me know if you have other questions. JMS
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January 2013
Hi Wilke- it looks like you have not posted in awhile... Just a note to say that I hope things are going well! Blessings!0June 2013
Welcome! My mom had pancreatic and did well on the chemo. I know what a tough cancer this is! We were very happy she choose the chemo. Sending you healing hugs!0February 2013
