Pain in Nick's A**: Chemo/Radiation, Phase 1

So what I'm going to call Phase 1 of the Pain in Nick's A** Removal Plan (PiNARP...If the Military can use crazy acronyms so can I) starts on Monday 11/5. Phase 1 consists of  a total of 25 IMRT (Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy) treatments (5 days a week for 5 weeks) and two cycles (1 cycle is 14 days of two pills a day and 7 days off) of Chemo drug called Xeloda (Capecitabine).

Lets get a look at what we're aiming at, shall we. Below is an image from my CT and I've highlighted the approximate location of the PiNA (Pain in Nick's A**). So this CT scan is an image of a transverse slice (What you'd see if a magician cut you in half and you looked at that cut. Luckily I didn't have to be cut in half to get these images) of my pelvic region. The bright white U shaped thing is my pelvic bones. The tumor look like much, other than some gray blob, But I guess since I drank contrast it's suppose to be more white than gray.

 Approximate location of tumor.

Here are some images of the three enlarged lymph nodes that they suspect have cancer in them. These CT slices are slightly higher (closer to my head) than the previous one of the location of the tumor, with the image on the left being the highest.

Location of enlarged lymph nodes.

Since I love pictures so much how about another. These are two other CT slices along the length of my body (sagittally). You can see the suspect lymph nodes in red and the location of the tumor in yellow.

 Location of the enlarged lymph nodes and tumor.