After 9 days of chemo cream application

The pictures were taken yesterday and the chemo cream will be applied for another week. So the head and hand will probably be more red by then. The spots where the liquid nitrogen was applied to his face are red and angry looking. The spots on my face did not look like that, but I am not taking a blood thinner. He says that the spots on his head and hand that are more red are getting quite tender to the touch.

Day 17 of Chemo Cream

The trip to the dermatologist today was not very encouraging. The doc had expected Bob's head to be looking pretty messed up and it is not as red/irritated/whatever as it would be if the chemo cream was doing a good job of eliminating cancer cells. So the new instructions are to apply the cream for 2 more weeks, then let the areas heal until he goes back to see the doc in early June.

Apparently there is another chemo cream that could be applied after the areas heal from having been annoyed by the current cream. There is a possibility that the other cream also won't do the job of destroying all the cancer cells. At that point surgery is the only option left for getting rid of the cancer.

Bob could opt for the surgery without trying the 2nd chemo cream. Surgery might also involve skin grafting because there isn't any loose skin on the scalp that can be pulled over the area from which the cancer would be excised.

Edit - I forgot to mention that the doc froze some precancerous spots on Bob's face with liquid nitrogen (like he did to me last week) so Bob has red spots on his face that should be scabbing over within the next week.

Day 9

We are continuing the cream applications and the spot on his hand is getting red and angry looking. As it turns out, the cream was supposed to be applied to the entire back of his hand, not just the one spot. (I asked the doc this morning for clarification.) So, starting today, Monday, we are applying the cream to the whole back of his hand. Although the cream has been applied to the entire top of his head for the same length of time as the spot on his hand, his head is only getting red in some areas. Go figure.

His hand is starting to be sensitive to muscle movement, so he will be inclined to move his hand less as it gets more tender.

First blog entry by raderbob

Stephanie is teaching me the in's and out's of dealing with blogs so bear with me as I struggle with the problem of doing the correct procedure.

Fluorouracil cream (abbreviated 5-FU, really) is still being applied twice a day. No "road rash" yet.

Cream Chemo Started This Morning

Now that we have recuperated from the flight home from Honolulu, it was time to start applying the chemotherapy cream to Bob's head and hand. The formal name of the cream is "Fluorouracil 5% Topical Cream." I was instructed to apply it twice a day starting today. This will continue for 6 weeks. We actually filled the prescription on the second of March but Dr. Cho did not want him to be using it while he might be out in the sun in Hawaii. The cream will cause the top of his head and his left hand to look like he has road rash (according to my cousin Marilyn who observed her father, my cousin George, use the cream). Dr. Cho also said that Bob's head would look like one big sore after a while.

There is a 70 to 75% chance that the cream will kill all of the cancerous and precancerous cells on his head and hand - so he may still need to have some surgery on the currently large spot on his head and on his hand but the surgery would be less invasive than if he had gone straight to surgery for the squamous cell cancers on his head and hand.I am supposed to wash the cream off my finger immediately after applying the cream to his head and hand.

On Monday, April 20, Bob will go visit Dr. Cho so that the doc can see how things are progressing. It will be about 12 weeks or so before his head and hand are healed - 6 weeks of cream then 6 weeks of healing according to the doc.