Hi all,
It has been a while sense I have posted so if I repeat any thing sorry. Bob had his surgery the third of Nov. They took the left side of his mandible, replaced it with his pectorial flap. They also took a small piece of tongue, 27 lymph nodes, left saliva gland, and of course the left retromolar trigone mass.

The outcome was no-bone invasion, no salivia gland invasion,and no node invasion. Yea!!! The perineural nerve had invasion, the turmor was so large that it invaded the deep skeletal muscle,it was moderately differentiated keratinizing scc. The surgical resection margins all negative and it is 0.2 from the closest posterior margins. Staging pT4aNOMx

Bob has a peg tube,chest port, and a whole lot of battle wounds. He had 2 fistulas, all clear now. We started chemo and radiation today. Bob did pretty good it is 7:30 and he hasn't gotten nauseated yet. I know we are about to hit some hard times real soon. But for right this minute we are ok. I almost forgot we are approved for SSDI. YEA!!!

This is the best place to come for answers and support. I do read a lot of the older posts, it helps me know what to expect next. I do have some questions. First what does kertinizing mean? Is 0.2 a fair distance from the closest posterior margin? Bob is having 38 rounds of radiation and he is getting 6300 rads ( if I wrote that right). He is also getting 189 mlgrams (I know the 189 is correct, please correct me if I have mlgrams wrong)of cisplatin every 21 days, for a total of 3 times. Is that a normal amount for each one?

It feels good to be taking sometime to finally write again. I also am taking one night class twice a week. On those nights my sons will help if necessary with thier father. It helps to bring a little normal life to the crazy one that was brought to us by way of SCC.

Thanks for your help,
Deb