A bit worse for wear, but I'm back

Hello, all. Some of you may recall that in February I had what was supposed to be my final PET scan after surviving Stage III HPV-related SCC of the right tonsil, and that the scan showed that I now have HPV-related SCC of the right lung.

This is the first time I've logged on since then, so here's the latest. On Monday I finished seven weeks of rads and chemo at Johns Hopkins, and am home recuperating. I have to say that this treatment was a walk in the park compared to what I went through three years ago: no feeding tube, no pain, very little fatigue. I tell you true: The treatments that we head & neck patients and survivors have been subjected to will really separate the men from the boys, or the women from the girls, or whatever comparison you want to make.

I did have my old friend Cisplatin again, though this time, Big Cis had a friend: Etoposide, which removed every hair on my head but left my beard and other body hair alone. So now I look like Mr. Clean, or maybe Uncle Fester.

It's way too early for the docs to make even an educated guess as to my prognosis. I had a CT scan after five weeks of treatment, a point at which the docs say that 80 percent of the scans show no change in tumor size. I was in the 20 percent group: My tumor and two bum lymph nodes showed some shrinkage, which of course is a good thing.

On June 20 I go back for another CT scan, which will be useless for evaluating how effective my treatment was. However, the chemo doc will use it to determine whether I need any further chemo. (I sure hope not.)

The docs tell me it will take three months to determine how effective the overall treatment was, so in late August I go back for a CT scan. That's the important one.

One other thing. The doctors and the nurses have been nothing short of amazed at how well I weathered the treatment. At the outset they told me the radiation probably would burn my esophagus and I'd have problems swallowing anything other than soft food. That didn't happen. They also told me I'd probably have a bad cough -- didn't happen -- and that I'd be terribly, terribly fatigued. Granted, I'm not at the top of my game, but I'm not fatigued like I was the last time around. (I actually roto-tilled the garden today, though I had to take really frequent breaks.)

While the docs and nurses were at a loss to explain it, I'm not. I've told everyone that the reason I've done so well is due to the power of prayer -- not my prayers so much as the prayers of the good people who've been praying for me. I know there are a number of people here who remembered me in their prayers, and there's no way I can thank them enough for that.

Hang in there, y'all. You're survivors, because if you can survive H&N treatment, you can survive anything.

--Jim in Delaware