Well my name is Eric and i am 29 years of fun and I am new here posting, i have been lurking here for some time now as I've been going through this cancer stuff since May 2014.
However Ill go ahead and give a brief run down to introduce myself and catch everyone up on the the lovely cancer timeline.

Found a ulcer looking thing on the left base of tongue around April 2010, went in about a month after it hadn't healed and got a biopsy, came back non cancerous, what a relief! Fast foreword till May 2014 the ulcer never went away�always was a pain with spicy foods/acidic juices etc but i never paid it much thought due to the biopsy being good back in 2010. Well my gf(who is/has been the light to all this going on) was finally like look idiot(thats me) go get another biopsy, so i did, in May/2014 and sure enough it came back cancerous. So we began researching places to go to and got into the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus�.met with the team for Head and Neck cancers, did the scans and thought of a plan�.first did the left side neck dissection and they also removed the tumor from the BOT, surgery was supposed to take like 4 hours ended up taking about 7.5 but they said they got rid of everything from the tumor site�along with 30 something nodes in which 4 were cancerous�. that surgery was on my birthday�wooo happy birthday self! haha after looking at everything they decided to do accelerated radiation and no chemo�.radiation was hard but i had more problems with the PEG tube haha�man that was rough(nerve problems, tube setting in wrong place)�.so finished radiation with flying colors and with reading everything on here it helped so much with such great detail it was amazing i found this place. Thank you all for that part�really! amazing work!

so finished radiation late september and was determined to get rid of the stinking tube since mine was so troublesome. After making myself eat everything through the mouth after treatment the drs let me get off the tube(went about 4 weeks not using it once and gained some weight) was eating almost everything with decent taste back and could chew and swallow most anything, lots of water or gravy helped the dryer stuff�... THEN�ugh�.woke up one day and the spot were the tumor was prior kind of burned a little bit. Again paid no attention since we go through hell after all this i thought it was just another downswing�..next day it was worse�.and worse and then the whole tongue started to burn with drinking the ensure/ iso drinks�..i couldn't eat/chew/drink shakes cause of the burning. Even with the magic mouthwash it wouldn't numb it enough�.then the jaw and ear pain started. So i went in and talked to the Docs and they saw a ulcer looking thing so they gave me some pills and steroids to try and heal it�.2 weeks later still no healing and really beginning to get hard to put down even 900 calories a day some days only 600 calories�.it was bad! They wanted to do another biopsy but i was like i can't eat so we got another tube put it just this past christmas�merry christmas self!(at least Santa delivered on this tube, didn't hurt really at all and now its great haha�.man the other one was a MESS) they also did a biopsy on the base of the tongue in the same spot as before and it came back cancerous�..So after not even 5 weeks it had come back in the same spot as the previous tumor, after removing the first one with a positive outlook and going through the radiation talk about a slap in the face. Since putting in the tube I've gained about 3 pounds but still WAY below my normal weight, also can't sleep at all even with assistance of pills(from the DR), have had bad neck and jaw pain along with headaches and my tongue is just so swollen it is pushing against my front bottom teeth and making indents in the tongue�..just got on the fentyal patch(SP?) that along with oxy has been managing the pain but i just want to sleep, can't sleep for more than about a hour at a time so that also not helping with the healing process of anything���
So now we have and I'm not sure the correct term for the surgery but they want to take the whole left side of the tongue and use a graft to do the flap and they are hoping this works. Got me pretty shook up since i was doing great and all and then bamo now this surgery were half the tongue is going to be removed(they said maybe more depends on when they get in there and how much permission i give them to remove, i said 67.87 percent and no more but sometimes my humor isn't laughed at haha) they are also going to take some nodes from the right side which hasn't had any problems so far�.but one node was bright on the scan the other day so they want to take it just to take it. Could just be inflammation from everything but they would rather get it now while they are in there.
Im mostly worried about the Trach tube afterwards since go figure i have a personal neck issue where i don't like anything touching my neck�.so breathing out of it I'm thinking is going to be really the worst part for me�.they seemed to be optimistic about saving the back portion of the tongue to help in eating but he also said it a possibility that i will always be on a tube and might even have to keep the trach tube in for who knows how long�those two things got me the most spooked�..

surgery is set for 7 days from now�..we are meeting with the chemo dr to just touch base with him and pick his brain to see where he stands on all of this�..

well that was longer than i thought but again i guess every cancer patient holds a lot in and then rambles because it feels good to get it out Thanks for listening !