Hey everyone, this is my first post and I am in the midst of treatment for my cancer and have been reading from this forum for a while now and thought I should finally sign up and post. First I want to thank everyone for the vast amount of information on here as it has helped me greatly in hearing about people who have gone through similar situations.

I will try to break down the last few months quickly to give my story. I was diagnosed with SCC inside my cheek in Sept. and had scans done that confirmed cancer also in the left jawbone and possible nodes on left side. On November 12th, I had surgery which was the partial mandibulectomy with fibula flap and neck dissection. I had and still have a PEG, had the trach for about 8 days and spent 10 days in the hospital. I had a bit of bad luck after all that. one of the margins ended up showing cancer cells on the back cut of the jawbone, also the hospital "lost" 28 of the 30 lymph nodes that were taken out. The 2 nodes that made it to pathology came back negative, but with the bad margin and lost nodes I will be starting chemo and radiation soon. Healing is slow and has its ups and downs as everyone knows. I ended up with a fistula infection that took a few weeks of draining out of the neck to clear up and now has been causing swelling in the neck due to buildup. I am still really swollen in the jaw and I can't open the jaw much but am eating semi soft foods pretty well, just takes a lot of time. My leg is healing from the fibula flap and I am able to walk slowly. The skin graft is taking its sweet time to fully heal. The main drawback to having leg function is the skin graft and very limited ankle movement but it is all getting better little by little. I am set to start 7 weeks of radiation on Jan. 5th and chemo starts on the 6th. The chemo will be cisplatin every three weeks split between 2 days each time. I am just bracing myself for the side effects I've heard all about. I already have a lot of dry mouth and the left side of my tongue is very sore and sensitive which I am hoping is just from the irritation of the new jaw and dry mouth and not spreading cancer.
Again, I am very grateful for everyones posts on their situations and reading the stories. I know this is a long hard road and I hope to be around for long time to come.