Home sweet home...

I got home yesterday from the hospital. I am tired (ok, exhausted is more like it), my mouth and face hurt, my face and neck are swollen and what is left of my tongue is swollen so much that it takes up most of my mouth. Yet, I feel so awesome! I have beaten cancer again!

Doc Williams said that pending the final pathology results, this should be it. He is pretty confident that he got everything this time. He said that the tests they ran during the procedure showed that the margins are good and it looks like everything was gotten out. This tumor was about 1 centimeter big and had "feelers" going out from it. Because of those "feelers" Doc had to take more of my tongue than he originally thought he would have to take. That is why they had to do the bolster and skin graph. The bolster will come out next Thursday. After it comes out, Doc says that I should have more use of my tongue. In addition to taking the tumor out, he also "cleaned up" some things from the last surgery. That should result in more movement in my tongue and clearer speech. YAY!

Now, while I am glad that Doc Williams did everything he did, I was still surprised to see just how bad my tongue looked. OW! What is left of it is swollen up about 5 times its normal size and is bruised beyond anything I ever would have imagined. I have never seen a tongue look so purple. Then there is the area that was cut out. It is all so nasty looking that even Lilli was grossed out by it. (Doesn't stop her from looking at it though.)

This post would be longer, but Katie did an excellent job in the previous post of describing most everything that went on Wednesday. She is also doing a great job of taking care of me too. I am lucky.

Hopefully, on Thursday they will take the bolster out and that will be the end of this little adventure.

Citius, Altius, Fortius