My surgery is scheduled for Thursday, 1/16. I will be having a complete glossectomy and dissection of the right side of my neck. The nodes on the left side have already been removed.

I met with the surgeon today who is going to be doing the reconstruction. This was the first time I have met with this person. I was very pleased with our conversation, and he made me instantly comfortable. He was very straightforward in explaining the procedure and the decisions that he might need to make along the way.

From his reading of the PET scan, he said the tumor was close to the larnyx. Depending on the exact involvement, he may have to shave some tissue off of the larnyx. If he needs to take too much, he said that it could impair my swallowing, so I need to make a choice in advance. Basically, the choice in that case is to a) keep the larynx to preserve speech but be unable to take food by mouth or b) remove the larnyx and be able to eat, but loose the ability to speak more or less normally. The surgeon emphasized that there are ways to articulate sound without a larnyx and be understood.

I have been thinking about it this afternoon and have decided that I would rather have my larnyx removed if it came down to a choice between eating and talking. Never eating by mouth would be pretty devastating to me. I hate to loose my larnyx, but I think I could deal better with an alternate means of speech than I could with a life of not eating by mouth.

The most important thing he said was that he's confident (within the uncertainty inherent in cancer) that I have a good shot at successful treatment this time around. He believes they can get it all with the surgery. It's very likely that I will then need to go through radiation + chemo. I really hate to go through that again, but I really like being alive, so it will be worth it.

As for the reconstruction itself, he will be take tissue from my thigh for the reconstruction of the tongue. If they tumor has involved my jaw, it's possible they will need to take some bone from my shin to do a reconstruction of the jaw.

So, here I am waiting for the surgery. Though I am terrified, it's good to have everything lined and understand what is going to be happening. I still can't believe I had this stupid recurrence, but it happened and there is nothing to do but move forward. I am confident in my surgical team. Life is going to change more this second time around, but I adapted the first time and will adapt again.