Just the background . . .

On the Monday before  Mothers Day (May 4) I was driving home from work and reached up to smooth my hair back out of my earring and I noticed that the lymph node on the right side just under my ear was swollen. I actually said out loud to myself in the car, "Shit,I do not have time to have cancer." It seemed weird to me since I didn't have a sore throat or anything so I mentioned it to Jason when I got home and he thought it was weird too.  We were getting ready to try some serious baby-making in-vitro one more time and the cycle was ready to start . . . so we both thought that I should get it checked out to make sure it wasn't some bizarre infection that was going to push back the timing of the cycle. I went in the NEXT day to my primary care doc and he did a CBC blood panel and a chest x-ray and both came back clean. He too thought it was odd that the gland was so swollen and said normal protocol would be to watch it for a few weeks and then if it didn't go down, to biopsy it. Well . . .as you know, I'm not really a watch-and-wait kind of girl, so 36 hours later on Thursday morning, I called to make an appointment with an  ENT doc who specializes in head and neck surgery to get his opinion and hopefully a biopsy.

Dr Kamerer could not get me in on Thursday or Friday so I made the appointment for Monday morning the 11th at 9:15. He immediately biopsied it (sharp needle jabbed into the neck and twisted around a bit--fun!) and scheduled me for CT scan on Wednesday morning and a follow-up appointment on Friday afternoon to discuss the results of the biopsy and scan. When we got there on Friday afternoon (May 15) he shared with us (Jason went with me of course!) that the results of the biopsy were inconclusive because he did not get enough cells but that the CT scan clearly showed that at least 2 lymph nodes were full of something they should not be that he defined as "likely to be tumor".  He did a second biopsy and scheduled me for PET scan on Tuesday (4 days ago on the 19th). On Tuesday morning before the scan, I went into the cancer center to meet with Dr. Jim McDermott, the oncologic pathologist (ie the guy who looks at tumor cells under the microscope to try and figure out what kind they are) for yet another biopsy . . .he jabbed a needle into my neck for the 3rd, 4th and 5th time and was able to 1) withdraw a lot of fluid from one of the nodes, 2)finally get enough cells to actually analyze, and 3)look at them under the microscope immediately and give me some answers.  He confirmed that it was a tumor of some sort and shared with me his best guess observations--not lymphoma or thyroid cancer as we had hoped, which are relatively easy to treat, but some sort of head and neck cancer that starts in the squishy places in your mouth, nose, throat etc and that most people don't even know they have until it has already spread somewhere else.  

With that news, I headed off to the PET scan where they give you some IV glucose and then scan your body to see where it "lights up" on the picture because cancer cells take up glucose faster than other cells. . . . The results of all that and what happened next are below . . . copied from an earlier email  

Tuesday May 19th: The news today is not good but not horrible either!  We finally got some biopsy results back that show "undifferentiated carcinoma cells" most likely squamous cells from  somewhere in the head and neck that have spread to the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck.

Based on the PET scan that we did today, it is likely that the primary tumor began in one of two places . . .my right tonsil or the base of my tongue (I know! Gross!) there is also a potential spot on the right side of my thyroid but they actually think that this may be a SECOND cancer not related to the others . . . Two for one, you know how I like to excel at everything I do! 

Anyway, the treatment for this type of cancer is pretty straight forward---- CUT IT OUT! On Monday, May 25th at noon, (21 days after i first noticed the mass) they are going to remove my right tonsil, and biopsy the tongue base (NO they will not be cutting into my tongue--whew!), then they will go in from the outside and remove most of the lymph nodes just below my right ear (where the mass is now) and finally, make another incision just under my adam's apple and remove the right half of my thyroid. (totally cool Frankenstein like scars for Halloween . .. Perhaps just this once I won't be a witch!) Dr. Donald Kamerer is going to do the surgery at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. He is the Chief of Head and Neck surgery there and also the Chief of the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer team. The surgery is expected to take about 6 hours and then a couple of hours of recovery after that. Jason will try to post something here while I am in recovery. 

The worst of it from a pain perspective is apparently the tonsillectomy which is supposedly quite painful for adults.  The hospital stay will be 3 to 4 days and then about 3 weeks of recovery after that. Just as I am beginning to feel better and start to be able to eat and talk normally again, they will begin the radiation and possibly chemo--fun summer! The odds of curing the stuff are better than 50%  so that is good news (heck, we've spent $30K on in-vitro trying to have a baby with far worse odds than those so I'll take it!) My Mom and sister are coming down for the surgery and then my Mom will be back at the end of the week when I come home. Charlie will be staying with Erik for those few days and then . . . .we will just take it one day at a time . . .