First day of treatment....

jeepman
jeepman Member Posts: 109
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
Well I went in for my first day of treatment at University of North Carolina Cancer Hospital and met my ENT Doctor. He appeared to be a great guy and was able to identify my primary, right tonsil with small affected area BOT. Pre-Op is 16 May and surgery is scheduled for 24 May. My ENT Doc is going to be in touch with me in the interim time to let me know what the team of Radiation/Chemo/ETC...of Doctors have come up with for a treatment plan. The bottom line is that my tonsils are coming out probably along with a radical neck dissection of my right side. Then chemo and radiation. I will let you guys know how things progress. I am still staying optimistic.

Prayers and blessings to you all,

Mike

Comments

  • Jimbo55
    Jimbo55 Member Posts: 590 Member
    #2
    Mike
    I would think it is a positive that they have identified the primary. After the surgery, they can zero in the radiation more precisely, which is a good thing. Will they also take out the cancer on BOT during the surgery? Cheers

    Jimbo
  • Hondo
    Hondo Member Posts: 6,636 Member
    #3
    Jimbo55 said:

    Mike
    I would think it is a positive that they have identified the primary. After the surgery, they can zero in the radiation more precisely, which is a good thing. Will they also take out the cancer on BOT during the surgery? Cheers

    Jimbo

    Hi Mike

    Sounds like good news that they found the primary, like Jimbo said now they can zero in more precisely with your treatment. This should help a lot in how it affects you going through rad and chemo treatment.

    All the best to you on the 16th
    Hondo
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #4
    Very Similar
    Mike, if you read my posts or BIO, I had a very similar experience...

    ENT has and still is my lead...diagnosed, tonsils out, nine weeks of chemo in three week cycles, then concurrent chemo and daily rads for seven weeks.

    STG III SCC HPV+ Right Tonsil and one node on the same side.

    Best,
    John
  • KareGiver
    KareGiver Member Posts: 301 Member
    #5
    Skiffin16 said:

    Very Similar
    Mike, if you read my posts or BIO, I had a very similar experience...

    ENT has and still is my lead...diagnosed, tonsils out, nine weeks of chemo in three week cycles, then concurrent chemo and daily rads for seven weeks.

    STG III SCC HPV+ Right Tonsil and one node on the same side.

    Best,
    John

    Thinking of you...
    Hope all goes well...just a few weeks ahead of you. Take care!
  • connieprice1
    connieprice1 Member Posts: 300 Member
    #6
    chemo & rads
    Mike, My wife is 5 weeks post treatment. On her 1st day of chemo we were discussing the feeding tube and her nurse told her " to just take everything one day at a time". You may or may not need a feeding tube but you will know if and when and a gastric doctor can install it easily and quickly and you can use it the 1st day. Good luck with your treatments and you are going to be fine. We wish you well, Homer & Connie
  • Goalie
    Goalie Member Posts: 184
    #7
    Like the others, I am sure that you feel some relief in knowing that they found the primary. Now you can get your head around the entire thing and not worry about other unknowns.

    My rt tonsil was primary and it had made the short jump to a lymph node in the neck. My docs at Georgetown prescribed the tonsillectomy and then the rads and chemo and then the neck dissection. I had no grounds to argue and, now that we are done successfully, no cause to complain. The ENT's reasoning for delaying the dissection until after rads was that he would rather have the rads kill all of the possible problems in the neck before opening it up than take the chance that, in the operation, he ended up disturbing things and spreading bad cells even if he got the main problem. 99% is still 99%.

    Perhaps your ENT is confident he can get it all or perhaps he is confident that the rads and chemos will clean up anything that might be floating around. You might ask them for their reasoning but if they say that they have had success this way, I would go with it and be confident.

    In any case, you now know much better what you are looking at. In a few months it will all be over and you will have a new appreciation for wife and life. In the meantime, have a beer -today- because you will not want one this summer.

    Doug
  • Pam M
    Pam M Member Posts: 2,196
    #8
    Game Plan
    Good to hear you know the primary - I'm sure it will help give you peace of mind. My treatment was a little different than yours - I had the tonsillectomy with my open biopsies first, then induction chemo followed by chemo rads. I did not have a neck dissection up front - one of my nodes was huge, and docs hoped to wipe out the affected nodes with the chemo and rads - didn't work completely, so I had the dissection nine months after radiation ended.

    Just something about putting a plan of action into place did a lot to perk me up. Hope you have a smooth recovery from your surgery on the 24th.
  • tnsilcncer
    tnsilcncer Member Posts: 64
    #9
    Thinkin of ya today
    Was thinking of you this morning. My surgery is May 17th, they did my treatment first so doc says there are no tonsils left to take (I'm not gonna lie, this kind of worries me because I want the dang tonsils to be removed surgically and anything that had anything to do with this cancer taken out. Find them and take them. They are what started all this) so they'll be doing a right side dissection but no tonsilectomy. I'll be posting how it went after, so maybe it can give you an idea of what to expect, besides the tonsil part.

    Hope you are feeling okay, other than nervous and I'm keeping you in my prayers!

    Hugs to you and your wife!
    Karen

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