Cancer Update

Per chance, I happened to look at the blog section of my site today, and I see it was exactly one year ago that I made my first blog about my cancer battle. So I felt it was appropriate to give an update today.

Last March 8th, I had what was in fact a fourth surgery and it was a tonsilectomy. They initially told me that I had stage 1 tonsil cancer. I smoked my last ciggarette the morning before the surgery. Today, I still have a brand new unopened pack in my truck.

After that surgery, it was determined that the cancer had morphed down into the lymph nodes in my neck, and they now changed me to stage 2 throat/neck cancer. The Doc's initial statement that I might not need chemo therapy, was wrong. In fact I was scheduled for yet another surgery, making it five in total. Then I would need both radiation and chemo therapy.

For a month and a half they hammered me every day with radiation treatments to my neck and throat area, with chemo therapy happening once per week. Let me tell you, I never even knew that I had cancer, but the treatment for it damn near killed me. They were succesful in making everything including water taste bad, and even now months later I can't taste much.

The reports show that they got it. A scan of the area showed no cancer and I got to ring the bell in December. I retired from my "day job" back when i was 55. I'm 66 now, and after what I hve been through the last two years, I'm not sure how much longer I am going to keep doing my "hobby shop".

Dale