On the advice of our doctor friend in Los
Angeles, I did change my original clinic to that of
Stanford University Hospital. It took a lot of doing and
messing around between the insurance, getting medical
records, etc., but I was finally able to be seen by both
the Radiation Oncologists and the Chemotherapy
Oncologists at Stanford this week.<br><br>It appears that
Stanford has a special program that uses a reduced level
of chemo duration and reduced level of radiation
dosage. The program is still in trials, but so far they
have reported really good success rate (66 out of 68
patients were treated successfully in the past 3 years -
still waiting for that magical 5 years of remission).
<br><br>For stage IIA Hodgkins, they would use a special mix
"Stanford V" chemo drugs for about 8 weeks. Chemo
treatments are given once a week. After 8 weeks, radiation
therapy starts for another 4 weeks. Total time is about
12 weeks. <br><br>One of the main goals for this
intense program is to reduce the toxicity levels of the
chemo and radiation to reduce long term side
effects.<br><br>I will begin treatments on December 13 after a few
more tests to confirm my being in stage IIA.<br>I'll
let you know how it goes.