Darth Vader

OK, now we are getting somewhere.  Ying Hitchcock, M.D. will be my radiation oncologist.  My Darth Vader.  She is going to come up with a plan to kill my tumor.  She is going to do it by burning the shit out of the thing with radiation.  Lets go.  I just watched Lone Survivor last week and I am ready for a fight.  I am a Navy Seal.  I am brave, a warrior and I am gonna kick butt.

Jane and I met Dr. Ying at one o'clock on Friday, my 62nd birthday.  She is a tallish Chinese woman with a very think accent.  It was a bit hard to understand her but we were all ears.  She casually mentioned that the PET scan showed no mets and that the staging was T3N1M0. (We're slowly learning a whole new language.) Basically, for me it means that the tumor (T) is a little diffuse, the local lymph nodes (N) are somewhat involved and there are no mets (M). We met with Dr. Ying for about an hour.  She checked me over. We looked at a couple of scans and then she told us matter of factly the best way to treat this cancer.  It was going to be with daily radiation for 37 treatments lasting about 30 minutes a day, Monday - Friday.  She then told us how I was going to feel.  NOT GOOD.  That eventually I would not be able to swallow.  That I would need a feeding tube. That my throat would hurt and be so dry that I would think I was in the Sahara desert.  Oh Yea, the fatigue would be severe.  Ha,  I am not a Navy Seal.  Kinda scared now.   A warrior?  Not so much.

Dr Ying said I would have a face mask made.  (Really, what's that for?  I wondered.) And you will need to wear large teeth guards during the radiation so your teeth don't fall out. I've heard of hair falling out but my teeth?   I have a very, very bad gag reflex.  I have trouble holding the scuba mouth piece in my mouth without gagging when I am 50 feet underwater.  This may be my biggest fear.  Oh yea, if I gag during the radiation treatment and throw up I won't be able to move because the face mask will be holding my head fast to the table to keep me from moving.  Oh, joy.

Off to have my mask made and have another CT Scan.  I asked Dr. Ying  about all this radiation I will be getting with the scans and all the treatments.  She said, "Don't worry, you are old enough and the effects of radiation take many years to accumulate that you will probably die of something else before that comes back to get you."   Oh  Umm, is that good news?  

Two young tech's took me away to get my mask made.  I tell them about my gag reflex and they said they would use a small mouthpiece.  It was huge.  Prior to having my mask made Dr. Ying had squirted my mouth and nose with lidocaine to look down it with a scope.  This takes away the gag reflex so I was able to get the mask and mouth piece made without incident.  As I laid on the CT gurney, they fashioned the mouth piece and then heated up a sheet of 1/4 inch thick plastic mesh that they put over my head and face and trapped me like a terrorist about to be waterboarded.  No water, of course, and I could breath through the mesh.  But this was weird.  I will try to include a picture of my mask that I get to use every day for the next 7 weeks.  I laid there for 20 or 30 minutes while they let it harden and ran a CT scan so they can make sure the radiation only goes to the tumor and not too much of my surrounding tissue.  Oh yea.  I also now have three little tattoos on my chest so they can line up everything so the radiation, again, goes only to the tumor.  I met one final time with Dr. Ying.  I asked two questions.  "What are my chances of a cure? and do you have to radiate my whole throat or can you shield the left side which was clear of cancer?  She relayed that the cancer I have is very curable.  Maybe 90-95 percent.  Very good news.  She also said it is best to radiate your whole throat so we dont have as much risk with recurrence on the oppisite side which maybe as high as 70 percent.  Not so good news but I like the cure rate so I'm good.  We left after getting a bunch of labs and headed off to spend sometime with my family.  Tony, Rachel, Joey, Katie and Heather are all here to support me.  We are having a pizza party and movie night together just to hang out and feel everyone's love.  Funny how things make the important things important.  Is cancer the best thing that ever happened to me?  Stay tuned.