Hemo and Chemo?

[WishIKnew]

Anyone out there who has survived chemotherapy while doing hemodialysis.  This is what I'm facing and I'm terrified!  I need to know others have done this and made it through.  Anyone?

[Rerun]

I know someone who has had bone cancer treated with chemo while doing hemo and come through.     Doing great.

Just take one treatment at a time.   

[dawn24]

Not directly relevent, but my Dad had Dialysis, Chemo, and Plasmapheresis all at the same time while in ICU for an auto-immune condition(either Wegener's granulomatosis or micropolyangiitis, autopsy couldn't say for sure which one)  Ultimately he wasn't able to be the disease, but he did improve on the treatments enough to come off the vent for a period of time. 

[monrein]

My answer is no to your question but more importantly...here's a cyber hug.   

[Sax-O-Trix]

Haven't been there, but like Monrein, I send you 

[cariad]

Oh, Diane. 

OK, yes, I have done both, but only for a week. I so desperately wish I could lie to you right now and tell you it was no big thing, but I found it fairly excruciating. However, let's keep in mind what a wimp I am. Also, because I did chemo and radiation for a clinical trial, it is possible that I was on a higher dose of chemo than would be typical. I honestly don't know. The radiation was much lower than that used for cancer.

Here is my suspicion on what you are facing: they will need to time your chemo infusions and your dialysis rather precisely because your kidneys are not able to rid you of the chemo toxins, so those must be dialyzed out so that you are not poisoned by it. What I remember more than anything is the fatigue. This is good, though. You will probably sleep through much of it, and chemo, unlike dialysis, does have a limited number of treatments. From any list of possible side effects, the two I am almost guaranteed to get are headache and nausea, so that was the excruciating part. If I had it to do over again, I would demand a PICC line. You should understand that chemo destroys your veins. I had what I thought were really good veins until I underwent chemo, so please ask the doctors what you can do to avert that damage. On hemo, your veins are all you have, so gather as much preemptive knowledge as you can. I shudder to think what would happen if I needed to return to hemo, because I now find that my veins infiltrate easily. My veins were always small, now one has clotted and another is scarred beyond use.

I wish I had more encouraging news. However, my treatment was a success, I am absolutely FINE and I have much hope that you too will be when all is said and done. Best of luck!