Okay, Mike found out today that during his surgery, the doctor was not able to get all of the cancer and his only option at this point in Chemo to slow down the spreading.

Here's the thing,.......Last year, his radiation oncologist left and was replaced by a new, young guy. The old radiation oncologist was supposed to schedule him for a PET scan (I read this last week in some of Mike's reports from last year)...this didn't happen becuase he left and I guess Mike got lost in the shuffle during the change.

A few/four months ago, Mike got what appeared to be an ulcer on the back of his throat. He already had a set appt with the new radiation oncologist the following week so we waited until then. Mike went to this appt by himself. the new guy said, it's just an ulcer. When Mike told me this, I looked up the new guy on the computer only to find out that he was fresh out of school and this was like his first real job so I was not comfortable with his diagnosis not to mention that I just had a bad feeling about the "Ulcer" so I made an appt with his ENT. Two weeks later, we go to see her and she said the same thing, it gives the appearance of a benign ulcer but because of his hitory, she wanted to watch it closely. I was okay with that because I trust her. So three weeks later, we go back and she said it had not changed, told him to keep gargling with salt water and stay away from any acidic foods and wanted to see im again in two weeks, then BOOM, on the next appt, it's a tumor and he needs a PET Scan. Pet scan shows a small amount of uptake in the throat area so now we need a biopsy. A few weeks later, biopsy is done on a wednesday and she has them rush the results. Initial results back on FRiday and they are negative, YAY.....or not. The full report comes back the following WEdnesday (day before THanksgiving and they are positive. She calls us on Friday (so as not to ruin our Thanksgiving) and tells us the bad news. Invasive, poorly differentiated non-keratinizing SCC, HPV+ on tonsil and base of tongue. She says that from what she could see when she was in there, he was a beautiful candidate for surgery. The surgery was scheduled for two weeks later (this is when the plastic surgeon was available). HE goes in on December 13 for feeding tube, surgery to split jaw and remove tumor and plastic surgery on December 14. 13 hours of surgery, muscle removed from one leg, skin from the other. The ENT comes out during the surgery to tell me that sent a bunch of frozen sections to the pathologist and she couldn't get clear margins. It had invaded deep into the tongue and has started on the larynx. She said she could remove the larynx to make it easier for him to swallow but that would not get rid of the cancer so I told her not to do it. SHe also saif that even though his Cancer is HPV+, it acts more like the type that is not caused by HPV. She said it's a very badly behaved cancer and very invasive. She was visibly upset.. She said that if she had known how bad it was ahead of time, she would never have done that surgery. She says taht his only option is Chemo, to slow it down.

I feel like Mike "fell through the cracks" with the change of doctors in the radiation department and I feel like his ulcer was under estimated and I am feeling very guilty about that because I knew in my heart of hearts that it was something bad and I feel like I should have pushed harder. Now we are talking about getting a second opinion at Johns Hopkins. My fear is that so much has already been done, 39 radiation treatments last year with chemo and a neck disection and now this surgery.....what else can anyone do? I would imagine that there is so much scar tissue....how many surgeries/treatments can someone have? Did we drop the ball right along with the doctors?