I see there is two days before your surgery.I want you to know you have a group of supporters here, some who will pray for you, some who will send positive thoughts and some who will just be thinking about you all day on Wednesday. You have probably been filled in on what your doc is planning, my only words to you right now are, make sure you have an advocate in your room with you for the first few days. There is no reason for pain, or lack of nursing care. Your job is to recover, and the better care and pain management you have, the better recovery you will have. I sat by my husband for most of the days and nights and by the time we left the hospital, I knew what he wanted to say and spoke for him, just through the look in his eye.
God Speed, and talk to you soon!!
Jennie

BT, My thoughts are with you on tuesday, I'm hoping all goes well for you. I normally do not like to give opinions on medical advice but Minniea and Eileen are experienced when it comes to teeth removal. I would say that without a doubt my biggest problem of being a long term survivor has been my teeth. They are well worth fighting for. I beg you to think hard about letting anyone yank out healthy teeth.
Once again Good Luck Tuesday.

I have appreciated all your opinions on the teeth pulling questions. Of course I don't even know for sure that I will have to do radiation so hopefully I am worrying for nothing. After hearing what you all have been through about your teeth, rest assured, I am not going to let them pull all my teeth without a bunch of opinions. I have a lot better feelings about it than I did. I do have a lot of fillings, but I now feel that most of them would be worth fighting for if and when that happens. Thanks for the boost. I am scheduled for surgery Tuesday around noon and the nurse said it would take at least 3 hours. That kind of surprised me as I was figuring 1 or maybe 1 1/2 hours... My knee replacements didn't take 3 hours, but considering it will be hard to get back in there and work, and all the other things involved in testing the tissue and all I guess that is normal. Depends on what all they have to take out and how many lymph nodes are removed. I took a little cold a few days ago and have been worried all weekend that they might not be able to do the surgery. I called the nurse and she said since I was on antibiotics just last week totry to make sure a sinus problem was all over with, I should be ok for surgery unless I have a temp of 101 and I have had no more than 99.1. Just a cough today and feel pretty good, so hope I get to get this over with.. It will really upset me to have to reschedule and sit and wait. I can see that it had "pooched" back out after they removed tissue for biopsy Dec. 5th., and it is a little more sore, so I am really wanting to get this over with... Thanks to everyone for your good thoughts. Hopefully I will be able to report good news on here after the surgery is all over.... Bye for now.

Good luck on Tuesday. I'll be thinking of you.

You know how to get in touch with me if you need to.

Jerry

Merry Christmas,
I am glad to hear that you are going to have this taken care of. I have cancer in my tonsils and on the back of my tongue, I haven't required surgery, but am going throughChemo and radiation. I had to have all of my teeth pulled, and that was not pleasant!! and now my mouth is to sore to wear the "new and improved ones" but you know what, It sure doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Funny how priorities can shift!!I don't think there is an easy way to cope with the big "C" at any time in our life, but the prognosis today is so much better than it was even 10 years ago. How much surgery will you require? I am sure once it is done you will be none the worse for the wear, remember we are survivors, we have a treatable desease, we are no longer doomed. We are the Lance Armstrongs of tomorrow, Our families and friends are testiment to that.

I hope you have a great Christmas. I only regret not being able to taste anything, there is way too much good food around and I have to force myslef to eat anything. I have a somach tube so that when the throat gets to sore I won't starve. I am a very imapatient patient It has been a good lesson for me to learn to slow down and just appreciate what is going on around me. I have found it is alright to give in and take a nap in the afternoon, and go to bed early at night, it is ok not to want company, it is ok to feel sad and to cry for no apparent reason, it is ok to be human.
I hope you keep usp posted after your surgery. I will keep you in my thoughts. Remember,, you have the power to beat this ,

Hi everyone,
I survived my tongue surgery and neck dissection on the 26th. It has been pretty rough. I was in the hospital for 6 days. They feel they got all the cancer with clean margins and took all the lymphnodes. I finally got a report on the lymph nodes the 6th when they took out the staples. I'll have to say the neck surgery has been worse than I expected, but I am healing well and I think it will be fine with some time. I still have the feeding tube down my nose and my husband has been very helpful feeding me and putting all my meds through the tube. I have always been a very bad gagger, so this has been a real ordeal, but I am coping.. You do what you have to...The plan is to take the feeding tube out this Thursday... I cant wait... What a joy that will be. We really dont appreciate the little things in life like being able to swallow your own spit.... Ha.. I have had to have a suction machine to get it all out. I had a cold when this all started and I have had an unbelievable amount of junk I get strangeled on.. Hate it when I am so helpless... I have been very sick to my stomach and that is very hard when all this is going on, but that is getting better. The Jevity stuff that goes in the feeding tube is very rich and didn't agree with me for several days, but that too is going much much better. I am so glad I had sense enough to keep an eye on this thing and let the oral surgeon do all those nasty biospies. They were a piece of cake compared to now. A group of drs called a tumor board will discuss my case, but my dr feel I shouldn't need radiation, we'll see. Hope not... I have come to really like and trust this dr, he has been very good to work with and a nice person too and that always helps when you are so sick. Shouldn't babble on, just wanted to thank all of you who sent good wishes. Hope I can give some sensible advice to others in the future... Most important is to keep your chin up.. I have had those tearful times and I am sure I will again, sometimes you need to release stress, but you can't let it consume you, have to kick yourself in the behind and get in gear.... My husband will be looking for his "farmhand" back before long and I will gladly help...Talk to you soon. Thanks again for all your good thoughts. It hasn't gone unappreciated...

I am very happy to hear that your surgery went well and you have clean margins. Don't hesitate to get a 2nd opinion re not needing further Tx such as rad and enhancement chemo. There are not to many on this site that did not have surgery followed by chemo rad. This is a very agressive cancer. Just my 2 cents.

Your description is almost 100% what I faced. SCC,StageII front right on tongue . Went to a radiologist before surgery and he recommended that I go with the surgery. With the surgery performed on 11/21/06( about 20% of Tongue removed) had a radical disection of neck. Margins OK and nodes are OK as per surgeon. His thought was to hold Rad to later if the C returns. Likewise the chemo. So far so good. Only real issue is speech

Hi Bigtwin,

Gald to hear that you are through with the surgery. You'll soon be looking back on this and time does make the memory fade (a little anyway).

In our private messages, we discussed that there are a handful of us here that have never had radiation or chemo. This is cetainly a big decision and you will get many opinions.

If radiation does come up, please reread our discussion about having teeth removed.

Hope you feel better real soon.

Jerry

Bigtwin...I, also, have a stage II SCC....different area...but clear margins and negative nodes at dissection. My surgeon said the same thing as yours: no radiation now. Save it for later if you need it for a recurrence. It seems that there would be two ways to think of this. 1. have radiation to PREVENT a recurrence, or 2. trust that you have gotten all of the cancer and save the radiation as a fall-back measure. I guess it depends on which scenario carries the greatest chance of being correct. My surgeon feels that he has gotten all of the cancer, and that there is no need to undergo the difficulties of radiation now.