We are almost "currently in treatment"- well I'm not sure we were out of the last treatment yet- but John's new surgery is scheduled for Feb. 9-7:30 am. Told to expect 8 hrs.in the OR. Had a good talk with both surgeons today. Here's what I heard them say. DR.S [whom we been seeing all along} thinks this 2nd surgery has a good chance-along with chemo- of getting rid of the cancer. He never used the word "palliative" treatment. They have decided to use a titanium plate to replace portion of jaw removed and skin and vessels from right arm to cover that, and remove more lymph nodes for testing. They are going to keep him in SIC in a "sleeping state" for 48 hrs.to be sure he doesn't move around. Dr.S
told me to go somewhere and rest
during that period because I would be of no use in the hospital. Also, Dr.S will not move him to a floor on a weekend, so we won't be in a room until Monday 13th. We were told to plan a stay of 14 days in hospital, then up to 4 weeks recovery at home before starting chemo. Dr. S and Dr. M[the reconstructive surgeon] both told John that this would be pretty tough as the last surgery was less that 10 mo. ago, so there has already been trauma plus the radiation trauma to his mouth and neck. I didn't ask today what the chemo drugs would be, but I will because I want to post them here and get any advice on how to deal with this at home. I gave Dr.S a print-out of Brian's post on "accepted protocols" for the combination of surgery, rad. and chemo combined and an interesting discussion insued. He offered to try to get us to a consult at MD Anderson, but said that he doubted we would hear anything different proposed and time was pretty important at this juncture. So, here we are. Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. Amy