IM1KrazyLady's Journey with Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Esophagus Ca...

My mother knew as early as November of 2011 that there was something wrong because she was having trouble swallowing. She had been diagnosed some years ago with a hietal hernia and thought that was the problem. She also didn't want to worry the family since it was so close to the holidays. When we got the initial diagnosis of esophageal cancer we were stunned to say the least. We've cried, prayed, talked.....but at the end of the day when all the tests were completed it was confirmed that she had esophageal cancer.

My mother was deathly ill after 1 round of chemotherapy and decided against continuing with it and opted instead to have radiation only. We received various opinions regarding the possible success of surgery at her age, but she decided that she wanted to forego the surgery and just do radiation treatments.

Mom had radiation Mon. thru Friday for 6 weeks. She had to miss 3 during that time frame and made them up at the end of the 6 weeks. She missed the appts. because of hospitalization due to dehydration, infection in J tube site, etc. Although the treatments did cause nausea & vomiting she did seem to tolerate them fairly well. She had her last treatment approx. 3 weeks ago and will have to have a scan in the future to see how successful the treatments were. Not sure how long they have to wait before they can do the scan.