Diagnosed last Monday (Squamous Cell -throat cancer)

Skiffin16 said:

Great News Mike
Great news, I'm glad things are beginning in a positive direction for you Mike.

When I was undergoing concurrent chemo and radiation, my chemo day was Monday morning, then radiation within an hour after. I had/took control of my schedule based on when I had chemo, and what worked best for my schedule. There were a few times when the y asked me to come in early for one reason or another. If I could accomodate them I would, but if not I explained that I couldn't.

When I say early though I'm talking before noon, notthing before 8:00am. My regular daily schedule was around 3:00PM for the radiation. But we had set that up before I even began. I'm sure with some communication, they can work your schedule closer to something that fits.

Glad you are fianlly getting started, hopes and prayers that the plan for Erbitux works out for you this time.

John

GLENNA M,

I love the photo of your Yellow Lab. My wife anf I had a Black (her name was Ebony) for 13+ years before she passed. She was and still is such a part of our family, gone in body, never forgotten in memory and our hearts.

We now have two Chocolate Lab sisters, Jasmine, and Kali (Kaylee)... They are such characters, the same but totally different. They are going on four now, hard to believe. These two are crazy, and always testing their limits. But thanks to Ebony, we are much wiser now to their little schemes, LOL.

Anyways, just wanted to comment on your Yellow....

John

Glenna M said:

Labs rule!!!
John, my husband has an 8 year old black lab and mine (the yellow) is 7 years old but will go through life thinking he is still a puppy. Several veterinarians have told me that there is something about the yellow ones, they never seem to mature or mellow like the black ones. Mine are like night and day, not just in appearance but temperment also. They are like our children and we spoil them rotten, there isn't a day (especially while I was undergoing rads and chemo) that my dogs don't make me laugh. We would be lost without them.

I'm so sorry about Ebony but as you said she will always be in your hearts.

Better stop now - LOL - you get me started about my "boys" and I just go on and on and on. Just one more thing before I close, did you see on the internet that Labs have been voted the most popular breed for 19 consecutive years?? They are number one in my book.

Glenna

Chefdaddy said:

Hi Guys
Well guys,

To keep up with this group, my son's dog's mother was a Boston Terrier and dad was believed to be a Rottweiler, which seems nearly impossible. She looks like a 50lb seal and a real sweet heart.

Today the radiation department had a problem, as they had made my mask a few days after all my teeth were removed and I was pretty swollen at that time. This morning, the mask wasn't lining up correctly. The swelling had reduced in size and they were having to run and stop the machine several times and make adjustments. They finally used tongue depressor sticks as shims to make it line up and it finally worked. Tomorrow I have to go in early so they can rerun it and me on the simulation before I get radiated.

When I went to the chemo department to get the Erbitux, they tried to access my new port for the first time and it wouldn't work. The nurse tried and tried, every time she tried to flush it I would hear a slushing sound in my ear, she got very concerned as I had a swollen area in my neck where the surgeon had tied into the main artery.

She went ahead and put in a line in my arm to get me started on the pre-Erbitux drugs. She also called the surgeon that put it in to come in and look at the problem. He eventually arrived and in trying to flush some saline he couldn't get the syringe to work and called the nurse over and she unscrewed the tip off the syringe...I knew I was screwed at that point!

He tried to flush it and I heard the slushing sound again and then had me go to have a chest and neck x-ray. It revealed that the line in the neck was all folded over and pinched off...don't these idiots test flush the port before they sew up their damned handiwork???

How stupid, he then told me he would repair it in one of his examination rooms, using a local numbing agent and a few stitches, I said "Oh Hell No"! You nick the main artery and you will not have me in an OR setting to deal with that! I refused! Now I'm having another surgery Friday so he can try to get it right. Who? me worried?

The Erbitux went good, they gave me three drugs prior to the Erbitux that put me to sleep and I didn't have any bad reactions.

The really bad news came to me as my daughter and I were having a bite to eat at the hospital's cafeteria just before leaving for home. I got a call from the kids mental health counselor.

She had just left a meeting with the kids attorney, their mother's counselor and herself, where she learned from the mother's counselor that the mother had left Washington State (across the river)and moved into an apartment complex the day after our last court hearing a few weeks ago.

The serious problem is that the the complex is next to ours and her apartment is right next door to our apartment, around 50 feet away with nothing hindering her view of our apartment, front or back. Then I was told she had become the manager there!

But it gets even better,

Her counselor, who appears to also be amazed by her craziness, also informed the group that she had informed him (her counselor) that she was watching every person that comes and goes from our apartment and the cars that leave the parking lot and that she also spies on the kids if they are outside.

The kids counselor was almost in tears as she was trying to tell me this, as she didn't want to add anymore stress to what we are already dealing with.
She apologized over and over for having to tell and warn me of this outrageous action by the mother and that both kids were in danger.

Apparently the mother had her counselor stop at her new home before he attended the meeting to pick up a hand written letter she's mailing to the Judge. She wanted him to give a copy to the kids counselor, the kids attorney and one for me. Apparently she is telling the Judge that she did this move to keep an eye on my son's dog??????

My kids counselor made it very clear to me that if my son happens to see her it will do severe psychological harm to him and possibly undue what success he has made in getting through some of the trauma and abuse. My son does not know any of this, the counselor has called a meeting with both kids in a few days where she's going to carefully tell him and then report his reactions to the Judge. The kids attorney is going to do the same next week and submit her report and recommendations to the Judge as well.

My daughter already knows this as she heard me come unglued as I learned this from their counselor over the phone. She is now terrified, and refuses to go outside and refuses to take the dog outside to do her duty. She has absolutely no parental time or contact with either child due to the degree of abuse.

I believe this may fall under child endangerment and stalking. Will this ever end?

It's been a long long day and I'm feeling very fatigued after the radiation and Erbitux and this latest set of events.

Please keep us in your prayers my friends.

Please ask God to put the train in reverse that's coming at us at the other end of the tunnel and get it out of our way....Amen!

Mike

Chefdaddy said:

Hi Guys
Well guys,

To keep up with this group, my son's dog's mother was a Boston Terrier and dad was believed to be a Rottweiler, which seems nearly impossible. She looks like a 50lb seal and a real sweet heart.

Today the radiation department had a problem, as they had made my mask a few days after all my teeth were removed and I was pretty swollen at that time. This morning, the mask wasn't lining up correctly. The swelling had reduced in size and they were having to run and stop the machine several times and make adjustments. They finally used tongue depressor sticks as shims to make it line up and it finally worked. Tomorrow I have to go in early so they can rerun it and me on the simulation before I get radiated.

When I went to the chemo department to get the Erbitux, they tried to access my new port for the first time and it wouldn't work. The nurse tried and tried, every time she tried to flush it I would hear a slushing sound in my ear, she got very concerned as I had a swollen area in my neck where the surgeon had tied into the main artery.

She went ahead and put in a line in my arm to get me started on the pre-Erbitux drugs. She also called the surgeon that put it in to come in and look at the problem. He eventually arrived and in trying to flush some saline he couldn't get the syringe to work and called the nurse over and she unscrewed the tip off the syringe...I knew I was screwed at that point!

He tried to flush it and I heard the slushing sound again and then had me go to have a chest and neck x-ray. It revealed that the line in the neck was all folded over and pinched off...don't these idiots test flush the port before they sew up their damned handiwork???

How stupid, he then told me he would repair it in one of his examination rooms, using a local numbing agent and a few stitches, I said "Oh Hell No"! You nick the main artery and you will not have me in an OR setting to deal with that! I refused! Now I'm having another surgery Friday so he can try to get it right. Who? me worried?

The Erbitux went good, they gave me three drugs prior to the Erbitux that put me to sleep and I didn't have any bad reactions.

The really bad news came to me as my daughter and I were having a bite to eat at the hospital's cafeteria just before leaving for home. I got a call from the kids mental health counselor.

She had just left a meeting with the kids attorney, their mother's counselor and herself, where she learned from the mother's counselor that the mother had left Washington State (across the river)and moved into an apartment complex the day after our last court hearing a few weeks ago.

The serious problem is that the the complex is next to ours and her apartment is right next door to our apartment, around 50 feet away with nothing hindering her view of our apartment, front or back. Then I was told she had become the manager there!

But it gets even better,

Her counselor, who appears to also be amazed by her craziness, also informed the group that she had informed him (her counselor) that she was watching every person that comes and goes from our apartment and the cars that leave the parking lot and that she also spies on the kids if they are outside.

The kids counselor was almost in tears as she was trying to tell me this, as she didn't want to add anymore stress to what we are already dealing with.
She apologized over and over for having to tell and warn me of this outrageous action by the mother and that both kids were in danger.

Apparently the mother had her counselor stop at her new home before he attended the meeting to pick up a hand written letter she's mailing to the Judge. She wanted him to give a copy to the kids counselor, the kids attorney and one for me. Apparently she is telling the Judge that she did this move to keep an eye on my son's dog??????

My kids counselor made it very clear to me that if my son happens to see her it will do severe psychological harm to him and possibly undue what success he has made in getting through some of the trauma and abuse. My son does not know any of this, the counselor has called a meeting with both kids in a few days where she's going to carefully tell him and then report his reactions to the Judge. The kids attorney is going to do the same next week and submit her report and recommendations to the Judge as well.

My daughter already knows this as she heard me come unglued as I learned this from their counselor over the phone. She is now terrified, and refuses to go outside and refuses to take the dog outside to do her duty. She has absolutely no parental time or contact with either child due to the degree of abuse.

I believe this may fall under child endangerment and stalking. Will this ever end?

It's been a long long day and I'm feeling very fatigued after the radiation and Erbitux and this latest set of events.

Please keep us in your prayers my friends.

Please ask God to put the train in reverse that's coming at us at the other end of the tunnel and get it out of our way....Amen!

Mike

Chefdaddy said:

Thank you very much guys and
Thank you very much guys and gals,

I wasn't going to post all that drama on here, but I was so overwhelmed by the time I got home I didn't know where else to go but to you guys.

I do worry about all this ongoing stress, which includes an incompetent surgeon as well as my ex's phyco-madness and this Fridays surgery, that I shouldn't be having to go through.

I know this stress will affect healing and just my getting some needed rest. I've been trying to sleep all night and all I could do was lie there awake and stress over her being so close to the kids and what I was going to say to the Judge.

I also learned yesterday that they are not going to do surgery to fix the torn tendons in my shoulder until September until after the radiation treatments are done. This really makes caring for my son very difficult, as well as putting an extreme amount of work and pressure on my daughter, as I can't lift anything without her help.

God's sense of humor is really starting to suck!

I'm beginning to wonder at what point does this concept that "God won't give you too much that you can't handle" actually comes into play. Is it just before you completely snap and start going postal, killing any one that has ever hurt your children?

I could handle all this crap if I didn't feel so damned bad, this is just too overwhelming.

I apologize for the bad attitude.

Thank you for being here my friends.

Mike

Chefdaddy said:

LMAO
Oh how I love your warped sense of humor!

Reading this gave me the first smile on my face in several days...thank you my friend!

Your bud
Mike