Checking in for Jim

Not that Jim couldn't check in for himself - I just know he won't.

For all you newbies I wanted to give you some encouragement this morning.  Almost four years ago, my husband, Jim, was diagnosed with inoperable hypopharyngeal and base of tongue cancer with lymph node involvement.  Three rounds of Cisplatin and 37 radiation treatments and a strong will on his part destroyed the cancer.

Last week Jim underwent a scope and got the all clear.  His ENT is a frank if somewhat blunt individual and he told Jim no one had expected Jim to survive the cancer.  

He is doing remarkably well at this point.  Having lost down to 119 lbs following treatment (and believe me, it was never for lack of eating) he is now back up to about 170. There is nerve damage so he does take medication to deal with that.

In the interest of full disclosure I will say he has one occurrence of squamous cell carcinoma on his lip but that was removed with no followup treatment and you can't tell anything happened at all when you look at the area.  

My purpose in sharing this is to let you know there IS a reason to hope, there IS a reason to believe you can beat this.