Hello everyone,

I wrote in this forum earlier that my father in law has been diagnosed with oral malignant melanoma of the tongue.He is just in the beginning stages of treatment.Well,yesterday I had to take him to have his peg tube inserted before his sugery on 11/21.They had a very difficult time threading the tube past his tumor and to make a long story short a 15-20 minute procedure wound up being a 10 hour stay in the hospital.

It seems that the reality of what is going to happen to him in the coming weeks and months is beginning to sink in.He has become extremely agitated today.He keeps asking why him,I have no answers for him.I don't think I metioned his age before but, he is 57 years old.The doctors can not give him alot of information because there is only so much they know about this rare cancer.

He is looking to me for answers because he knows all his doctors talk to me.I have told him about every conversation that I have had with them, but he feels that they are blowing his condition out of proportion.I don't feel that they are doing this so, I ask you all how do I deal with this situation?They said they will do all they can for him but they just don't know enough to give dead on probabilities.They all feel that he is in denial.How important is it that he fully understand what his chances are?I don't want to add to his misery and I'm at a loss to try to deal with this.I would appreciate any feed back on any of this.


Also, I would like to hear any experiences with peg tubes.He is still going to eat by mouth until the actual surgery day but cold things seem to hurt him.Did anyone else have this problem?

Caretaker of Joe,10/03 malignant melanoma of the tongue.
50% tongue removed,left radical neck dissection.11/03.Recurrence
to jaw and neck and multiple mets to major organs 1/2004