An update: Ron's surgery on Sept. 30 took 9 long hours. The cancer was much larger than they thought. He ended up having an excision from his right cheek all the way back to the right tonsil. He was also expected to have his mandible replaced with his fibula, but in the end they did not use the bone, so they threw it away! They did have to take half of his mandible before they got clear margins. We are now still waiting for him to heal more before treatment again. He had a PET scan again 2 days ago. I am the kind of person that has to look at the scan as soon as he brings it home, and from what it looked like to me is he still has an area on his right cheek that reacted, along with a new spot like behind his bottom lip. I don't know if that's true, and I certainly hope I'm wrong. I know I shouldn't look at them, I just can't help myself. One thing that I am so angry about is the surgeon did NOT remove his right tonsil, even though it contained cancer cells. He simply "shaved" it until it was clear. Even Ron's Oncologist said that he would have been a hero if he had removed it. Can anyone explain why he wouldn't have taken it out? Ron ended up in the hospital for 11 days because of abdominal complications, but thankfully he didn't have to come home with the trach. If you check my blog you can read about the conversation I had with the surgeon in the hospital that made me so upset. Anyway, we go back to the Oncologist next Monday to discuss treatment. When we saw him last he was recommending 10-12 weeks of Erbitux. He still had not been able to convince the Radiation Oncologist to re-radiate. I hope by Monday he will have come around. Ron is so willing to fight this again with everything he has, so I think it's only fair that his team back him up. If not, we may have to go elsewhere for another opinion. It's not like he doesn't know what to expect. And we are both quite clear about his quitting point. When and if his scans show mets all over, then he will stop treatment and just ride his Harley and enjoy his remaining days, but this is not that time. Thanks to you all for your good wishes and great counsel.
Lori