Hello everyone. My husband had his surgery on Wed. Jan 21. They took him to OR at 9:30 am and it lasted until 11:30 pm. Thankfully, the surgeon called me in the waiting area every 3-4 hours to let me know what was going on! The only surprise was that the tumor in his lymph node under right ear was actually in salivary gland, and it was as big as a small orange!! The tumor had infiltrated his right cheek and a bit at the base of his skull. (They had done CT two weeks earlier and it didn't show..how?) It has been growing very fast. Makes me wish we hadn't wasted time trying chemo.

They had to rebuild the inner cheek with chest muscle, then removed tonsil tumor (not a big deal) and the hard palate along with several teeth on the right upper side. They also pulled up chest muscle flap to his neck. Putting him back together took 4 hours! He now has very wicked incisions and a "dent" at this right ear, but he is doing better after a few very hard days....trache tube is awful...he had asthma attacks and couldn't get anyone to believe that's what was happening. Of course he couldn't talk, could only write messages, and they kept saying, "You need to be calm. It's anxiety." I finally convinced them to rig up a way to get his usual asthma inhalers going and another med using nebulizer. That was pretty scary stuff.

Otherwise, we are doing well. Scott is feeling better each day and is going to walk around later this afternoon. The first few days were very rough, but Saturday he seemed to really start the recovery process. I have used strength I didn't know I had! We'll be here, at UVA, for at least another 7 days. Thank you, everyone, for your encouragement and prayers. I really needed to talk here (and still do!). I'll check back in a few days.

Christine