Hello - 12-10-2006 04:57 AM
Just wanted to introduce myself. I met Brian on another forum and he has been inviting me to come over here...I finally decided to take him up on his offer.
I am a cancer survivor myself (a rare reproductive cancer, 3 years ago) and the care giver for a laryngeal cancer survivor. My husband had stage 4 laryngeal cancer with the left vocal cord being paralyzed and the tumor invading his cricoid cartilidge and the thyroid cartilidge. He was treated at SIU Med's HANOT clinic using RADPLAT. RADPLAT uses surpatargeted intra-artrial chemotherapy (cisplatin at 5-10 times the normal dose the body can withstand, with an antitoxin administeed simultatnously) with concommitant radiation therapy. The purpose of RADPLAT is to preserve the organs while curing the cancer. In my husband's case, he is a professional speaker, so if he had lost his larynx, he would have lost his livlihood, so preservation of organs was extremely important for him.
DH has been out of treatment now for 16 months and is doing excellent. He had NO voice at all when he sought treatment. Now his voice sounds like Al Pacino's...a bit gravelly, but it is a voice! And he has been able to return to work..although it has been slow going to rebuild his consulting practice after having been out of it for three years (that is when he first started losing his voice).
I am disabled due to lupus, arthritis, and a degenertive bone disease, so I have a lot of time on my hands. One of my 'hobbies' (OK, so I'm a little weird) is reading medical journals. I susbscribe to a service that scans all the medical journals and reprints articles in whichever specialties you opt to recieve them in. They think I am a med student. LOL! One of my 'specialties' is oncology. I feel this helps me stay on top of new and developing treatments. I have two uncles who are physicians and a sister who is an RN in a critical care unit, so when I run into something that I don't quite 'get', I have professionals I can turn to to explain it to me.
I hope to find support here as well as to be able to help others.
I am a cancer survivor myself (a rare reproductive cancer, 3 years ago) and the care giver for a laryngeal cancer survivor. My husband had stage 4 laryngeal cancer with the left vocal cord being paralyzed and the tumor invading his cricoid cartilidge and the thyroid cartilidge. He was treated at SIU Med's HANOT clinic using RADPLAT. RADPLAT uses surpatargeted intra-artrial chemotherapy (cisplatin at 5-10 times the normal dose the body can withstand, with an antitoxin administeed simultatnously) with concommitant radiation therapy. The purpose of RADPLAT is to preserve the organs while curing the cancer. In my husband's case, he is a professional speaker, so if he had lost his larynx, he would have lost his livlihood, so preservation of organs was extremely important for him.
DH has been out of treatment now for 16 months and is doing excellent. He had NO voice at all when he sought treatment. Now his voice sounds like Al Pacino's...a bit gravelly, but it is a voice! And he has been able to return to work..although it has been slow going to rebuild his consulting practice after having been out of it for three years (that is when he first started losing his voice).
I am disabled due to lupus, arthritis, and a degenertive bone disease, so I have a lot of time on my hands. One of my 'hobbies' (OK, so I'm a little weird) is reading medical journals. I susbscribe to a service that scans all the medical journals and reprints articles in whichever specialties you opt to recieve them in. They think I am a med student. LOL! One of my 'specialties' is oncology. I feel this helps me stay on top of new and developing treatments. I have two uncles who are physicians and a sister who is an RN in a critical care unit, so when I run into something that I don't quite 'get', I have professionals I can turn to to explain it to me.
I hope to find support here as well as to be able to help others.