Hi All,

My Dad had the neck dissection (bilateral ND and biopsy around the neck area.) As you may recall my Dad had lots of nodes to both sides of neck. Treatment finished June/06. Aug scans; tumour was gone and the nodes shrunk 50% (some nodes still as large as 1.9 cms).

My Dad declined the ND; PET was negative.

So after much consideration and a scan scare that was really just miscommunication between dr's; he decided to have it done.

He had it on Tues March 13 and everything went fine (5 hour surgery). In ICU for a couple of days with intubation. (Oh ya they intubated him awake before surgery because of post treatment swelling.)

By Friday he was walking around and eating ok. On the Sat morning he had alot of swelling and a breathing scare and the 'young' resident dr rushed him back to the OR and intubated him and back in ICU for a few days. What a nightmare! (One of the surgeons said she would of handled it differently and given him more steriods for swelling) grrrrr. So he was in longer; a total of 11 days. He came home Friday (23rd), what a relief!

He's doing fine now and feeling better each day. He's tired and uncomfortable. He won't take anything for pain (doesn't like how they make him feel). He said not much pain; more just uncomfortable. Feels like a board is strapped to his neck.

He can't get comfortable in bed unless he lays on his side. He propts up the pillows and plays around with different positions. Laying on his back makes the neck feel tight. Laying on his side seems to cause swelling.

He's eating pretty good now. He got the staples out on Thurs and got the results; and there is NO cancer. Great news!

He develeoped gallstone problem now; he has more pain from that then the ND.

Today he's having some bruisng under the chin. Is that common? Could it be from the staples being removed? The swelling was going down; now since Thurs he seems to be having more swelling on and off (swells then goes down).

Any comments or suggestions.

Thanks
LisaB