The First C On December 27, 2014, I went to St. Joseph Hospital in Joliet, Illinois due to spitting up blood every time I coughed. A mass was on my left tonsil. The emergency doctor slowed down the bleeding with Lidocaine. After nine hours of bleeding, the mass and my left tonsil was removed. Then Christine and I waited for the results of the pathology report until I saw the ENT (ear, nose and throat) physician on January 6, 2015. During this time, I spent recovering from the tonsillectomy. January 4th I had a feeling and early January 6th, I knew (more about this in the other C story). The diagnosis is squamous cell carcinoma, stage 2 and the tumor cells are strongly and diffusely positive for human papillomavirus (HPV). The size of the mass was 2.8 x 2.1 x 2.6 cm. I have THROAT CANCER. The doctor removed ninety-six to ninety eight percent of the tumor. The next step was getting a PET scan to see if it spread. The therapy is radiation for six weeks, five times a week. CANCER. When you hear that word what do, you think. How do you respond to a person who tells you that they have cancer? How do you treat that person? The reactions I hear: • You are kidding me. • Wow. • I am so sorry to hear that. • I am so sorry you have to go through this. • You have a long road ahead of you. • Silence. That is just a small sample and I know we will hear some more in response posts to this. Many think the worse, as they do not know that much about cancer. If you do not know someone going through this disease, you probably do not know much about it. Alternatively, you do and brush it off and believe you will never get it. This is not a big deal unless you are close to the person. CANCER SUCKS Why do I say this? I made the mistake to tell Christine that she will not know what I am going through physically when I get radiation treatment. First, I said this to my wife. Second, I said this to a cancer survivor. I even tried to explain that I am feeling the radiation and the side effects. She explained that whatever I feel she will feel. Whatever I go through she will go through. I listened and I learned as she explained more. CANCER SUCKS BECAUSE…. IT AFFECTS EVERYONE THAT KNOWS ME, LOVES ME AND THAT I KNOW AND LOVE. Does cancer have to suck? I will answer that in the next post: The Second C. Purpose 2: To show you how cancer is affecting others and me.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 23:50:15 +0000
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