Heavy Hearts

I suppose I'll update this more later, but Ken succumbed to the good battle on Friday, April 1st, 2011.

Services here in MD will be Saturday, April 16th, and in Cincinnati On Sat, April 9 at St. Williams. I believe 11 a.m.

Blog is back up...

Hi. Long time, no talk, huh.

Well, to be honest, I had stopped updating back in September because there really wasn't anything to update. I had the big surgery and was recovering nicely. There was nothing really going on. Then, December came and well, the update below should catch everyone up one what has been going on since the beginning of December, 2010.

Back in December, I was scheduled to have a quick 2 hr outpatient surgery to separate my epiglottis from my new tongue, since they had fused together during the healing process. Apparently this type of thing is somewhat common, so they were confident they could take care of it. It was during the pre op work and scoping that they discovered swelling in my voice box and the area surrounding it. Again, they didn't think this was a big deal, they thought my body was trying to protect my lungs to keep fluids from getting into them. Well, the surgery didn't go as planned. I nearly bled out on the operating table, due to my new tongue being so sensitive. But, they took this as a good sign. They said since the new tongue was so vascular, it was healing well. So, a 2 hr outpatient surgery turned into a 2 day stay in the hospital.

Fast forward to the end of January. I had some more swelling in my throat and was put on a steroid to combat that. To add insult to injury, I started having some serious vomiting issues. So, I went to the E.R. for that. Got admitted to the hospital, but not for the barfing. Turns out the swelling in my throat was so bad that my airway had nearly closed, so they had to put a tracheostomy tube back in. That was a five day trip in the hospital.

A few weeks after that, I got put back in the hospital, this time for bleeding issues with my new tongue. It was only a 3 day stay this time. They were able to find where I was bleeding from and was able to cauterize it, but they didn't like the looks of what was causing the bleeding, so they did a biopsy of the site a few days later in the doctor's office. This is when they discovered that the cancer was back.

They ran a PET scan to see just how bad it had come back and if it had moved beyond my head and neck. If it was still local (meaning just in my mouth & throat) I had three options: 1) they could do another major surgery to get rid of it. 2) they could try chemotherapy or 3) do nothing and let nature take its course. If it had spread beyond my head & neck, that meant they could not longer cure it and my options were very limited. If it had spread my options were 1) chemotherapy or 2) let nature take its course. It has spread. Not only is it in my new tongue, it is in the floor of my mouth, vocal cords and has moved into my bones through my left collar bone. After discussing the options with my surgeon and the oncologist, we have decided that surgery is not an option and really neither is chemotherapy. I decided to let nature take its course. I am now a terminal cancer patient.

So, there is the update.