Originally published 29/4/13
Today has been a day of good and bad. Histology was in for my checkup with my consultant.
Good
I am, on paper at least, cancer free. The surgery worked, none of the tumour was left behind in my tongue and they had some margin of healthy tissue all round. Of eighty lymph nodes removed from my neck, only four showed signs of cancer.
It has been caught in time.
Bad
The margins on part of the dissection of my tongue were too small, half a millimetre, to be entirely safe. Its is possible that single cancer cells exist beyond this margin and are still there starting to grow again.
Whilst one side of my neck was clear of the cancer, the other was not and two nodes had been split by the cancer growth again allowing single cell spread.
What does this mean? Six weeks of dual chemo and radiotherapy. A feeding tube put into my stomach, which means they expect the treatment to stop me eating and drinking for long enough to be an issue.
At least this time I don't have to have the damned tube up my nose, which I hated in hospital.
It's been a lot to take in, not sure it has all settled yet. I am certain that I can do this, I am certain it will be beaten. The process of this next stage of treatment I don't particularly like the sound of. I'm worried about the impact on my family too, especially my wife and kids.
On a lighter note, a few months back I decided to grow a short beard, I have a beard of about a weeks growth in my ten year passport I got last summer. Well, radiotherapy will probably kill the hair follicles in my cheeks, chin and neck, so that's that. I might manage a moustache, but that's it. Typical, I decide to grow a beard and then suddenly its gonna go. I guess I had better renew that passport photo.
