posted October 05, 2007 05:10 PM
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Hello everyone.....it's Minnie, me, not a daughter, not my mom....it's actually me! I just walked down the hall of Hopkins fantastic hospital halls to use the family computer room. Of course I have my usual entourage with me, lol. I am talking to you as the most blessed woman on this planet. When the doctors got into my mouth during the surgery, they found the tumor itself to be very small, in between a stage 1 and stage 2 but leaning more to a stage 1. They found that it had alot of scar tissue around it that was making it look bigger on the PET I had done a few weeks ago. They also found that it was very superficial, so I lost less than one third of my tongue and that was taken at an angle that leave me most of the front of my tongue. They took biopsies in eight other spots in my mouth, looking for field cancerization, and all came back negative. I had a graft rather than a free flap to my tongue, so it has a huge bolster holding it in my mouth right now and that's uncomfortable but I'm perfectly ok with that! The best news is that he did't find any evidence of any cancer in my neck, the node had dissapeared a few days ago, when my head cold left me, he looked at the PET, and he decided not to do a neck disection. No chemo, no radiation, he said he will watch me very closely for the next few months and, of course, for the rest of my life, but that he truly feels I will be ok. He is the top head and neck cancer specialist at Hopkins so I feel very good. Best of all........NO TRACH!!! I was so, so very happy about that. I'm having trouble with low blood pressure for the moment but I usually do so will wait it out. I'm hoping to go home tomorrow (can you all believe it!) and I will write again later tonight when they let me out of bed again.
So much love to all of you, thank you for supporting me and always listening to me.
Love,
Minnie

SCC Left Mandible. Jaw replaced with bone from leg. Neck disection, 37 radiation treatments. Recurrence 8-28-07, stage 2, tongue. One third of tongue removed 10-4-07. 5-23-08 chemo started for tumor behind swallowing passage, Our good friend and much loved OCF member Minnie has been lost to the disease (RIP 10-29-08). We will all miss her greatly.