You are right about being healed up. I had to have physical therapy to move my arm again after neck disection. I just hope I never have to have all that again. I did suffer from depression and my doctor just ignored me. He is brilliant but he has no bedside manor. Just all business and I did everything he said to do.
Think long and hard. You are doing the right thing by searching for answers ahead of time. I have found very few people that this has failed on but I quess they may not be on here. This is the only place I search usually.
Do you have other sights that offer such good information?
This one helps quite a bit but I feel like a loner sometimes because I am a failure!! HAHA That sounds like "poor me" but it's not. I am laughing at myself because it is the truth.
I had radiation for 3 days. My neck and jaw got so swollen that I could barely breath. They gave me a break, it went down, and they said they could put in a trach so I could finish. They also said the trach could get welded into my throat permanently. At that point, I could not eat or swallow anything but water and ice cream. I could not talk because of a lisp (former public speaker) so the thoughts of not being able to breath just sent my off the deep end. I quit, they yelled at me literally, and I go depressed. I thought I was going to die anyway and I did not want a trach. My husband cried but said he was behind me. I did know that I had nothing in the margins and nothing in my lymph nodes and that the radiation was insurance for micros hiding away.
To this day, I still have days that I wish I had finished and then I have days that I am happy I stood my ground when I read some of the things that happen years later. I don't know. I just remember the radiation oncologists telling me the odds were in my favor for it not to reoccur. He did say he would have to have chosen the same path. We don't know and all the doctors are different. I had 3 doctors tell me different statistics for me and then I took Brian's advice and quit listening to statistics. You can prove or disprove anything that way.
Keep on asking questions. I don't know of anyone who had a shoulder bone used? Anyone out there heard of this? Maybe that is why it failed?
Debbie
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