Today was radiation treatment 10. He's starting to get blisters on his tongue and having some pain with eating. His face is a little red. He had one cycle of chemo and though his blood work looked terrific, had some belly pain on the left side, hiccups, heartburn and constipation along with it and they did no diagnostics on what could be causing his stomach pain. Their only suggestion was to give him Miralax and encourage him to take more Prilosec, so he skipped the second cycle. Just before surgery, he was told he was a diabetic. In the hospital he was on insulin, and had some digestive trouble with the regular metformin, so they changed him to time-released capsules in between surgery and his first treatments. He stopped taking his metformin last week and the belly pain went away. Tomorrow is scheduled to be his next chemo, but I don't know if he'll continue with it after the radiation oncologist's comment about it not being totally necessary, his symptoms and the staff's inability to help with the symptoms. I can understand his reluctance, though I do wish he would try to do another cycle.


Dad was diagnosed 2/28/18 w Stage 4, N0 Verrucous carcinoma (VC) an uncommon variant of SSC
Mandibulectomy and free-flap reconstruction 5/30/18
Diagnosis changed to SSC.
Began treatment of 30 rads and 5 Cisplatin Cycles on 7/18/18
Decided not to do any more Cisplatin after the first one.
Finished treatment on 8/31/18.
3.19 Abscess & Recurrence wide mouth resection
4.16.19 Scapular Flap Reconstruction surgery
9.6.19 Clear CT!
8.6.20 Clear CT!