Make that 4 tickets and it's going to sell out quickly! Don't set yourself up though. Treatment will be tedious, painful and might even evoke a very emotional response. It will require tremendous patience to get through it. It's more than an extension of the road - it's a major speedbump. Your comment about the gloves brought back a lot of memories though. I was treated at a teaching hospital and the students were always putting their gloved hands down my throat. I actually had to encourage them. If it helps them to be better doctors then it's a good thing ;-)
I just read your blog - very nicely written. Is Ave the same thing a Aveloz? There is an article in Quackwatch about it.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/aveloz.htmlI also had an advanced stage tonsil cancer and had only IMRT and chemo and I am starting year 6 of survival. The surgery was described very much the same for me - 14 hours on the table (they basically filet your face like a fish). pectoral flap, with radiation and chemo anyway. The consensus of my team was that my mortality rate was slightly improved without the surgery - evidently they were right.
They are testing your thyroid because they need a baseline TSH number, especially if you have to have radiation. You should also have an audiology exam (hearing test) in case you will get chemo as well (especially Cisplatin). You never mentioned a PET ot PET/CT - you should have one of those as well to rule out cancer anywhere else (and also confirm that the cancer is where they think it's supposed to be).
Advanced stage tumors typically are treated with multimodality treatment - i.e. RT/ct or surgery/RT/ct. If it were me I would be very nervous about a surgery only solution and definitely seek out more opinions.
Sorry that you had to suffer through a tonsillectomy - my tonsils just melted into oblivion from the radiation. Three weeks into RT, the cancer was gone - totally off the radar. I didn't have any node involvment (at least that was detectable - the smallest detectable tumor is 2mm).
I too thought that this was an abcess (or PTA) and put off going to the ENT for several months (after all I found an exact picture on the internet). My first ENT was more blunt - he told me straight up that he was angry that I had waited so long to come in and that I should "get my affairs in order" and that he couldn't be positive, without a biopsy, but it reeked of advanced stage SCC. I passed out on the throne. You would think they would let you enjoy your unconscious state before they stuff the freaking smelling salts under your nose.
Oh, I almost forgot, I finally had to TELL people to STOP asking me how I was (it's like THEY are waiting for the other shoe to drop). It really got on my nerves. I put together a bcc list and sent out regular updates and that capped most of it.
As we often say around here - "One day at a time"...
