Hi all, thank you so much for the well wishes, and thanks to Sean for providing updates. I returned home yesterday (5/31/05) around 3:00 p.m. I'm up now for reasons I don't have to explain to the rest of you! So, I thought I'd let you know how it went.

I went into surgery the morning of 5/23/05 at the OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, OK. My husband and my aunt along with a couple we know went with me to kick this all off! Surgery went well, took about 8 hours, and they provided updates to my family every 1-2 hours. They removed 1/3 of the tongue, replacing with a live graft (vessels included) from the inside of my left arm. Skin to cover that area was removed from the front of my left thigh. They also performed the jaw split, and neck dissection removing 20+ lymph nodes (haven't gotten an exact count yet). I was surprised to find they didn't remove any teeth, and am keeping my fingers crossed none were compromised and I get to keep them all.

Woke in the ICU. Remember vaguely something about there being a lack of rooms, but I got in. Glad I wasn't in a hall somewhere. :-) I stayed the rest of Monday through early evening Thursday in ICU. They did a good job of keeping the pain under control, and I have to say...care in the ICU there was exceptional. Had an AWFUL couple of episodes with the tracheostomy where the "cuff" got clogged with mucous and I couldn't breathe. The second time was Thursday afternoon. I couldn't breathe, and they ran my husband out of the room. He said he knew things were "escalating" when the ICU nurse didn't leave the room and just stood and yelled for another nurse to help. By the end of the episode, I had 4 ICU nurses in my room. I don't think the whole thing lasted longer than 5 minutes, but seemed like hours to me. I ended up shooting a blood clump about 15 ft. and hitting the far wall. I probably would have been grossed out by that, but I was too happy to be breathing again. :-)

Anyway, after moving to a regular room, I just tried to work on getting off all those tubes. I'd set my sights on another tube, and once it was gone I'd work on the next. Not sure how many "Star Trek" fans are out there, but I felt like a member of the Borg. I never saw so many tubes. They removed my feeding tube on Saturday which pushed me into having to eat again. The worst part was having to take all those medications orally that had been going in the tube. Was tough to find something for pain that didn't burn my tongue and didn't make me want to gag!

So, I'm home now, and should probably go rest before any of my family finds me up.

Thank you again for all your advice, well wishes, and relating previous experiences. They all have helped so much. I'll get on more in the next few days and will gratefully add my name to the list of survivors.

Glad to be back!
Jennifer