Thursday, March 31, 2016

What I'm Up Against

So... Just so you guys know what I'm in for next week... and the next few months...

The surgeon had a cancellation, and now my presurgical consult is on the 6th, and I'm tentatively scheduled for surgery on the 7th... there may be a conflict with the OR scheduling, in which case it may be the following week, we're not sure yet.

At this point, most of the lymph nodes in my neck are cancerous... at least 9 are over 1.5cm... a couple of them are over 4 cm... it's not great. A couple of them are just under the surface of the skin, and you can actually see them distorting my neck.

I'm going to have what's called a radical neck dissection.

Basically, my entire neck, and parts of my shoulders and upper chest will be cut open and dissected to ribbons, pretty much down to the bone, including at least separating, if not severing, most of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in my neck...

They do this to get room to see and cut out the cancerous lymph nodes, and other masses, and then one or two more lymph nodes beyond the cancerous ones.

That means they'll be cutting up all the muscles that I chew with, swallow with, hold my head up with, speak with... yeah...

They may also need to cut shoulder muscles... and there will be some tendon and ligament damage, even if they don't have to cut any of them... and they may need to cut some of them...

Worst case, they may have to go into my chest, under the sternum, and around my lungs... We know that the lymph nodes around the mediastinal notch are cancerous, so they're going to have to go at least that far... if they have to go more... Well, that's not great. It basically doubles to triples the trauma, and the recovery time.

...and there is likely to be substantial nerve damage no matter what, including potentially some nerves being completely dead permanently.

After my surgery, I will need to stay in the hospital for anywhere from 2 or 3 days, to more than 2 weeks, depending on how my healing gets going.

I won't even be able to chew, swallow solids, speak much, or hold my own head up... for at least 6 weeks, and possibly as long as 3 months.

... and it's going to hurt... a lot... the whole time...

I may permanently lose a lot of strength, mobility, and control, in my head and neck, and may suffer permanent pain, from the damage.

I may also lose the ability to raise my arms... or raise them above waist or chest or shoulder level... or I may need to go through extensive rehab and PT to do so...

It's possible I may lose my voice, in whole or in part, for an extended period of time... Possibly permanently.

Oh and I'll be on a liquid diet for at least the first six weeks, possibly as long as 3 months.
Then, as soon as I am healed enough to be beyond major risk of secondary infection, and I can get up and out of bed without assistance... that's when the radiation starts.

... And that's another three to six months of baseline recovery time, depending on whether I need one or more courses of radiation...

During the radiation, I will have no immune system, and I will also be dangerously radioactive to other living creatures... Including my wife, my son, and my dogs... so I will have to be in isolation... One of the reasons we kept this house, we because it has an area where I can be in isolation.

That's gonna be fun...

... and then 18 months of recovery time for all of the above after that... Recovery from radiation, rehab and physical therapy, and hopefully getting some of my immune system back... Basically all the things I went through in 2012 only worse.

God...

Yeah... I'm really not ready for this again... It was... living hell the first time around... now...
... The only thing that keeps me going, is that I need to be there for my family...

If anyone wants to help out... Melody is handling everything because I'm going to be useless for months... but we can always take donations through paypal at chris@chrisbyrne.com and here's the gofundme link:

https://www.gofundme.com/kdmtkm6k