Chemo again; stent choice

Back on the Gemzar. I wasn't sure how I'd react even though I've had two rounds of it already. I had a heavy dose with the Taxotere at first, and then a very light dose with the radiation. I feel like Goldilocks with the present, medium dose. They told me that this time I would possibly get flu-like symptoms after the first two times, but two days after the first one I feel fine. Yesterday I swam in Stone Pond and went to Yoga (yay!), and I've had no fever, aches and pains. It's good to feel good.
Looking ahead, the main thing to worry about is white blood counts and platelets, but I'm not even thinking about them yet.

Yesterday we went in to see the GI doctor about replacing my stent, thinking it would be a simple matter of just setting a date. Not so simple. Bile duct stents come in plastic or metal, and we spent a lot of time discussing the pluses and minuses of each. The plastic stents have to be replaced every three months or so forever; if they aren't, I'll get major infections. (Any stents fill up with what he elegantly called sludge.)I had a taste of what can happen last time, though maybe I shouldn't have tried to get five months out of a three-month device.
Metal stents last longer, but Dr. Krishna discouraged us from going that route. He pointed out that they generally last 6-12 months, and they can't be replaced, though it's possible to insert another stent into the first one. You can't do that more than once, though, so the life of the stent, and the patient, are limited by the technology as well as the disease.

So I plan to go in for an ERCP and a plastic stent on Sept. 29.

By the way, we asked Dr. Krishna about curcumin, and he said to go ahead -- and that his mother had always said that turmeric was good for almost anything that ails you!