Surfing HalfOrc
2009-04-01, 08:30 PM
About a year ago, I went to the ER with a sore throat, feeling kinda crappy, and with an earache. The doctor looked me over, zapped me with a chest x-ray, and said "It's just bronchitis. Have some anti-bios, come back if it doesn't get any better."
Popped the pills, sorta felt better, but meh... Not really. Still, I'm not one to whine, so I just carried on. Never got better, sort of felt better every now and then, so I wrote it off as allergies. Never had allergies, but never lived in Oklahoma either.
Moved to Alabama, finally went to a regular doctor. That doctor looked me over, then sent me to an ear/nose/throat specialist the next week, who gave me a much longer look. Then things started getting... troublesome. The ENT guy looked down my throat, called in his nurse, and had her look. Then he jumped on the phone, and set me up for a CAT scan the following day. And another appointment up in Birmingham at a ENT clinic the day after that. Then he was talking about something in my lymph nodes needed to be removed. With surgery. My wife and I were looking around his office, and saw that he was also a cosmetic surgeon. I started joking with my wife that this guy was knife happy.
Went up to Birmingham, saw the specialist (actually head of the clinic, and professor emertus of throat surgery or something like that) and they looked at me as well. Then the word came down. Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Cancer on the base of my tongue. At stage T-2. :smalleek: They scheduled me for a biopsy, and sent me back home. I sweated it out for week or so, and went up for the biopsy. They knocked me out, took the sample, and sent me home again. A week after that, I was back up in B'ham, and the doctor confirmed I had cancer, and that it was malignant and had spread into my lymph nodes. And was getting ready to spread even further.
Then he asked if I had quit smoking.
I told him I had never smoked a day in my life.
So he asked if I dipped.
Nope.
Heavy drinker?
Light/Social.
Wow. You have bad luck.
Gee, thanks.
Yeah, bad luck. Don't smoke, don't dip,rarely drink, don't indulge in recreational herbology or pharmacology. I ride a bicycle for fun, lift a bit, eat right and generally stay fit.
And I still caught cancer.
Went back down to Anniston, and met my three new doctors, a surgeon, a chemo doctor, and a radiation doctor. The surgeon implanted a mediport so they could pump me up with the chemo medicines.
Then the chemo doctor put me in the chair of nasty medications for 7 hours on Mondays, and put me on a 24 hour portable pump for four days in a row after that. Then two weeks to recover, and start all over again. Three cycles later, I'm as bald as a cue ball, and a bit heavier. My wife knew the chemo and radiation would kill my appetite, and that I would lose a LOT of weight, so she decided to jump in front of it by fattening me up before I got too sick. I went from 195 (kinda chunky) to 225 (kinda fat!) then down to 175(a bit skinny). The 50 pound drop took less than a month. Good thing I fatted up, eh? As a diet method, I don't recommend it.
After the chemo, I went to radiation. 4-5 days a week, 20-30 minutes on the radiation machine, 35 treatments over 2 months. Didn't hurt in the beginning, but by the end it sucked worse than anything I had ever experienced. The machine itself didn't hurt, but the cumulative effect was like a super bad sunburn INSIDE my throat. Blistered up pretty bad, next to impossible to swallow, and eating was pure agony. Plus it nuked (literally) my taste buds, so things taste gross. Then I was done, and had a month and a half recovery period.
Finally, last week I went in for the follow-up CAT and PET scans. And as of today, I no longer have any masses on my tongue, no masses in my lymph nodes, and everything is coming back negative.
That means I've pretty much kicked cancer's ass! :smallbiggrin:
Now I'm at 180, going to the gym 3-4 times a week, and will probably get a new bicycle in May (my birthday present). Food still tastes off, but it's getting better every week. Still can't eat spicy, nor acidic food, but in time I should be able to. Not nearly as strong as I'd like to be, but that's also improving. And my heartrate is steadily falling. Oh, I also have really bad dry-mouth. But everything is steadily healing, so in six months or so it should be like this never happened.
Popped the pills, sorta felt better, but meh... Not really. Still, I'm not one to whine, so I just carried on. Never got better, sort of felt better every now and then, so I wrote it off as allergies. Never had allergies, but never lived in Oklahoma either.
Moved to Alabama, finally went to a regular doctor. That doctor looked me over, then sent me to an ear/nose/throat specialist the next week, who gave me a much longer look. Then things started getting... troublesome. The ENT guy looked down my throat, called in his nurse, and had her look. Then he jumped on the phone, and set me up for a CAT scan the following day. And another appointment up in Birmingham at a ENT clinic the day after that. Then he was talking about something in my lymph nodes needed to be removed. With surgery. My wife and I were looking around his office, and saw that he was also a cosmetic surgeon. I started joking with my wife that this guy was knife happy.
Went up to Birmingham, saw the specialist (actually head of the clinic, and professor emertus of throat surgery or something like that) and they looked at me as well. Then the word came down. Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Cancer on the base of my tongue. At stage T-2. :smalleek: They scheduled me for a biopsy, and sent me back home. I sweated it out for week or so, and went up for the biopsy. They knocked me out, took the sample, and sent me home again. A week after that, I was back up in B'ham, and the doctor confirmed I had cancer, and that it was malignant and had spread into my lymph nodes. And was getting ready to spread even further.
Then he asked if I had quit smoking.
I told him I had never smoked a day in my life.
So he asked if I dipped.
Nope.
Heavy drinker?
Light/Social.
Wow. You have bad luck.
Gee, thanks.
Yeah, bad luck. Don't smoke, don't dip,rarely drink, don't indulge in recreational herbology or pharmacology. I ride a bicycle for fun, lift a bit, eat right and generally stay fit.
And I still caught cancer.
Went back down to Anniston, and met my three new doctors, a surgeon, a chemo doctor, and a radiation doctor. The surgeon implanted a mediport so they could pump me up with the chemo medicines.
Then the chemo doctor put me in the chair of nasty medications for 7 hours on Mondays, and put me on a 24 hour portable pump for four days in a row after that. Then two weeks to recover, and start all over again. Three cycles later, I'm as bald as a cue ball, and a bit heavier. My wife knew the chemo and radiation would kill my appetite, and that I would lose a LOT of weight, so she decided to jump in front of it by fattening me up before I got too sick. I went from 195 (kinda chunky) to 225 (kinda fat!) then down to 175(a bit skinny). The 50 pound drop took less than a month. Good thing I fatted up, eh? As a diet method, I don't recommend it.
After the chemo, I went to radiation. 4-5 days a week, 20-30 minutes on the radiation machine, 35 treatments over 2 months. Didn't hurt in the beginning, but by the end it sucked worse than anything I had ever experienced. The machine itself didn't hurt, but the cumulative effect was like a super bad sunburn INSIDE my throat. Blistered up pretty bad, next to impossible to swallow, and eating was pure agony. Plus it nuked (literally) my taste buds, so things taste gross. Then I was done, and had a month and a half recovery period.
Finally, last week I went in for the follow-up CAT and PET scans. And as of today, I no longer have any masses on my tongue, no masses in my lymph nodes, and everything is coming back negative.
That means I've pretty much kicked cancer's ass! :smallbiggrin:
Now I'm at 180, going to the gym 3-4 times a week, and will probably get a new bicycle in May (my birthday present). Food still tastes off, but it's getting better every week. Still can't eat spicy, nor acidic food, but in time I should be able to. Not nearly as strong as I'd like to be, but that's also improving. And my heartrate is steadily falling. Oh, I also have really bad dry-mouth. But everything is steadily healing, so in six months or so it should be like this never happened.