Four years ago yesterday a surgical team specializing in ‘head and neck’ exorcised (love that word!) a demonic stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma from my right tonsil. They executed a mandibular swing to get at all the nasty bits and effect a clean neck dissection, removed a piece of the tongue, and all the lymph nodes. A ‘forearm flap’ technique was used to reconstruct the back of my throat and tongue, including the use of the radial artery from my left arm to replace the vascular plumbing affected by the tumour. And while they had everything disassembled, they moved salvia … Continue reading Anniversaries…

Not sure how it happened, the actual cause, but I recently came down with a really ugly bout of ‘thrush’…the oral equivalent of candidiasis.  It was treated with a Nystatin suspension as a rinse (one of the important ingredients in Akabutu’s Mouthwash), and seemed to go away after two weeks.  I hadn’t used the rinse for three days when I noticed last night that the coating on my tongue is back, and small clusters of the nefarious yeast have sprung up at the back of my throat. Damn. Ya, I know I’ve neglected this blog for 9 months now… I guess … Continue reading Neglect turns into…

Over the weekend..well, last Friday to be more precise, I hit the 3rd anniversary of my cancer surgery.  Everything seems to be going well. Of course there are the usual bits and pieces that keep cropping up; some trouble swallowing, an unruly tongue, the slight bulge in my neck where the saliva glands were re-positioned to, the white ‘flash’ on the other side of my neck that reminds me of the vascular rebuild (and possibly the cause of recent exertion headaches), the constant tightness in the right side shoulder muscles and the damned scars, too faint to be demonstrably outrageous, … Continue reading Three years since cancer surgery, and feeling ‘survivor’s guilt’…

I’ve been reading some of the Facebook pages about oral and head and neck cancers, and I’m quite surprised at how many people don’t really know what is going on with their treatments, or the treatments of a loved one. And in way too many cases, people just don’t know how to cope with the entire situation. I seriously recommend that before you do much else in your battle with cancer, you select a ‘buddy’ to help you through this. Oh, please, don’t give me that macho I-can-do-this-on-my-own bullshit. The odds are really good that you’ve never been here before. … Continue reading Time to ‘Buddy Up!", boys and girls…

The Oral Cancer Foundation in the States is starting to make some serious headway in the awareness campaign to make people sit up and take notice  of the need for early detection of Oral, Head and Neck cancers.  Hell, look what early detection did for me!  Leveraging the good work of the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance’s ‘walks’ organized around the free screening program that is being promoted for a week in April, this year from April 12th ’til the 18th (2010), they are aggressively targeting the broad spectrum of the population who just don’t get it, but might.  Now that sounds … Continue reading We need a Canadian push… Oral, head and neck cancer awareness

On Monday of this week I met with my GP to go through the results of the leg x-ray that he had ordered some time ago, and to discuss the results of Holter monitoring that was performed just before Christmas. I also decided that I was going to raise the question about my CT scan, ask about the Synthroid dose (thyroid medication), and get the doctor to take a look at a bit of an anomaly in the skin on my forehead. Holter Test: Now obviously there was no problem with the Holter or the doctor would have been on … Continue reading Results…

After a brief conversation this morning with Dr. Williams, my oncological surgeon, I can tell you that the Neck and Chest CT scan is NOT showing anything that one should be worried about. There is some decrease in secretion at the top of the esophagus, but Dr. Williams’ visual exam (with that damned scope thingee) showed nothing. The radiologist did point out a tiny granuloma, but indicated that it was likely age related, and not linked to the cancer, or anything else worth being concerned about.Dr. Williams did ask about the cough that started this round of scans: is it … Continue reading And the results are in…