Greetings from New Member

Hello Adrianna and welcome to the club that as we always say no one really wanted to join. It looks like you have had your share of cancer, especially since you had 3 surgeries and 2 tumors in 4 months. You share a common apprehension among people who have had cancer that a recurrence will happen. We all go through that and it diminishes over time but is always there in the back of our minds. The acid reflux you should be able to take medication to control it, ask your doctor. As far as your echo and ear pain it may be due to the surgery and some nerves were cut, nicked, or disturbed possibly. These effects may change or diminish over time and go away. I developed a spot at my back molars on the side of my last operation for a lymph node where my cheek is and sometimes when I bite down I must pinch or scrape it a bit and it feels like a sore spot like a mouth ulcer. Both my ENT and Dentist have looked at the area and said it looks perfectly normal and my recent CT scans showed nothing they were clear Praise, God. So my ENT thinks it is probably a nerve giving me this sensation. Your situation may be a nerve also. As far s being on surveillance, or monitoring, whatever you want to call it. Your ENT is normally the front-line guy that keeps watch on you. And depending on your case is how often he will see you and order scans. After my first cancer of the throat treatment, I was seeing my ENT once a month and getting scoped and checked. Then as time moved on and I proceeded to get better he moved my monitoring out to 3 months, then 6 months etc. I am now over 2 years out from my last cancer episode and see my ENT every 6 months due to my case and get CT scans with dye of the head and neck area once a year and a chest CT is done also because that is where they say this cancer can end up going to. So Adriana you should also get a CAT scan with dye of the head and neck area probably every 6 months since you are fresh out of treatment. Then down the road once a year. Check with your ENT as per your particular case. As far as anxiety of cancer returning or a new case coming up we all have that, even people that never had cancer. You just have to keep busy and concentrate on enjoying life and you will think about it less, it's something we have to manage but there's no secret to it.

Also just curious where did you get your treatment, was it a cancer center? And also I was wondering many times they will give you at least some light radiation as a follow-up to eradicate any errant cells that would be left after the operation, did your doctor give a reason for no radiation? I am guessing he was very confident in the fact that the operation had clear margins and they got all the cancer.

So, Adrianna, I hope some of this helps and you stay cancer-free.

Wishing You the Best

Take Care God Bless-Russ

Adrianna

Follow up visits can be the worst not to mention every time something hurts you tend to tie it in with cancer. Soon after my throat cancer I had a pain in my leg and my first thought was....now I have leg cancer. Same way with scans, my first , three months after completing radiation, I had to wait two weeks to get the results. One thing I have tried to do is not allow cancer to control my life. I've had it three times now and I keep telling myself if the thoughts of having it again last more than 30 seconds, that's 30 plus seconds of my life I wasted on something I have no control over. If cancer attacks again, I'll kick its a.. again. Easier said then done but it works for me. (90% of the time) People that never had it can not begin to know how we feel and how it affects not only our daily lives but also in the future with what I like to call, the "WHAT IF FACTOR". I rambled on enough so I will go back to my corner.

StayPositiveStayStrong

Jeff