He said there's two routes to go; a lot of radiation and chemotherapy or surgery and less radiation. He recommended surgery because he's pretty sure of where it is. If they didn't know where it is or can't find the tumor then the only option would be radiation and chemotherapy.
So he wants to go in and remove what he thinks is a tumor on my right tonsil, which corresponds to the side of neck where the swollen lymph nodes are. That would go straight to pathology to confirm that's the cancer. If it's confirmed then they remove my lymph nodes and the next day I go home. Recovery from surgery is about 2 weeks then after that I do 2-3 months of radiation.
If it's not in the tonsil then he would feel around for it. He said they have a 98% chance of finding it in surgery. If they can't find it then they just end the surgery and I go the radiation/chemotherapy route.
He said the survival rate is on the plus side of 70% and if I survive this the chance of it coming back is rare. I asked him if age is a factor in the survival rate and he told me not really. He said a greater factor is how well your body deals with cancer and how aggressive the cancer is.
We talked about the cause and I asked him if he thought it was smoking/alcohol or HPV related. I had an HPV test but haven't received the results back yet. He said it's almost definitely caused by HPV and was sure the test results will come back positive. He said typically the alcohol/smoking caused cancers don't manifest until you're older.
Regardless, he said no alcohol, including mouth wash would be a good idea. I knew alcohol contributed to cancer but I didn't realize that just gargling with it and not drinking it did too. He said 1-2 drinks a year would definitely not be a problem, 1-2 drinks a month would probably be OK, but more than that significantly increases your risk of cancer in the mouth and throat. So, ya, I'm staying away from alcohol. Maybe after I pull through this I'll have an occasional glass of wine, beer or scotch.
So, along with no more alcohol, I'm further hedging my bets and doing everything I can nutrition/diet wise to give my body the advantage and cancer the disadvantage. A fight is not won by sitting back in an arm chair; it's won by getting up and fighting.
We talked about the cause and I asked him if he thought it was smoking/alcohol or HPV related. I had an HPV test but haven't received the results back yet. He said it's almost definitely caused by HPV and was sure the test results will come back positive. He said typically the alcohol/smoking caused cancers don't manifest until you're older.
Regardless, he said no alcohol, including mouth wash would be a good idea. I knew alcohol contributed to cancer but I didn't realize that just gargling with it and not drinking it did too. He said 1-2 drinks a year would definitely not be a problem, 1-2 drinks a month would probably be OK, but more than that significantly increases your risk of cancer in the mouth and throat. So, ya, I'm staying away from alcohol. Maybe after I pull through this I'll have an occasional glass of wine, beer or scotch.
So, along with no more alcohol, I'm further hedging my bets and doing everything I can nutrition/diet wise to give my body the advantage and cancer the disadvantage. A fight is not won by sitting back in an arm chair; it's won by getting up and fighting.
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