"Uhhhhhh......Houston?...We have a problem..."

"We have to cancel the radiation immediately."                      "suffering"                                        "book a CT"   "Cancel the treatment center."          "Much worse than we thought"            "inform his oncologist"                                     "Necrosis"           "new problems"            "spreading to the bone"            "New radiation shell"     "40% chance"    "have to make a decision"           "I'm so sorry"       "poor survival rate"        "permanet disabilities"        "back to the drawing board.""life insurance?"     "torture"            "surgery first"   "not enough time to heal"   "dying flesh"      "more pain"           "maybe 5 good years..."    "10 yrs of low quality of life.

"I'm sorry to tell you..."

                "If I treat you..."

                                      "It'll kill you."


Yah.....that was about 2 minutes of my life on Monday.



So, As the title suggests; Yes. We have a problem.

We actually have several problems.
All procedures are not ready for launch.

All systems are NOT go.

Yesterday, In a very short time, It felt like we headed straight into a crash landing before we'd even gotten off the ground.

I've been preparing myself mentally, and physically for weeks now. trying to to "pep talk" myself into believing that I have what it is going to take to get through this. I've been practically living off of Ensure and High calorie meal drinks trying to stop the weight loss. tying to get myself as healthy and prepared as I could possibly be. And with less than 20 hrs until my first scheduled dose of radiation....

The plug gets pulled on the whole kit and kabootle.


It turns out the cancer is changing the structure and density of the bones in my face.
This is making it impossible for my face to hang on to my teeth anymore. So every time I chew, I am causing little amounts of damage inside the jaw bones, which in turn is also damaging the soft tissues surrounding.

Alright, I can handle that... some dental work, and we're all good, right?

RIGHT????


Wrong...

Now, keep in mind, I am still learning a lot. And I'll admit up front that due to the high number, and amounts of pain medications I am on these days, my memory retention is kinda crap as well. So some of this is confusing, but i'm doing my best :)

They can't do the radiation now, because the damaged tissues and bones that are already present would be unable to withstand the radiation. Essentially what they are telling me is that if they hit me with the radiation, it will effectively KILL the tissue, and not just damage it more. This killing of the tissue would lead to something called necrosis. the flesh would die, inside of me, and then begin to rot like a corpse. My life expectancy would be demoted to mere weeks, if that. In the end, the doctors words were "If we start the radiation tomorrow, I would give you about a 5 percent chance of making it to your 30th birthday, So at this point I am not prepared to offer you radiation."

(BTW, my 30th birthday is only 29 days away, on March 1st.)

So, What do we do then?

Well,

Tomorrow?

WE FEAST.

Why feast?

Because as of 9 am Thursday morning, I will no longer have any teeth.
They are removing every single tooth, not that I have many left from the first bout of cancer, but the ones i do have were the only ones i was able to eat solid food with.
And due to the whole bone structure / fake tongue thing, dentures aren't an option.
As it turns out, implants may not even be a real option down the road because of the jaw bone problems and putting in "mounts".

So Wednesday will be the last day i get to actually chew solid food for at least a couple years now.
I'm gonna miss corn on the cob.
And the letter T.
It's only Tuesday night. I don't lose my teeth till Thursday, and I ALREADY miss the letter T :(



So we remove the teeth... Then we start a course of antibiotics, more pain meds (albeit these are REALLY good drugs, lol), and hold our breath for a couple weeks.

As long as we can avoid any complications such as Dry socket, Infections, any new illness, or post-op problems, Then we will re-assess and see how much of the mouth has healed.
If it is in good enough condition that the doctors feel we can safely start the radiation, then we will.

The down-sides are 1) We have to sit and wait for the mouth to heal, which just equals MORE time that this cancer is allowed to hang out, do what it wants, go where it wants. and 2) because there is already damage, and we've JUST freshly healed from MORE damage, the radiation is still significantly more dangerous then it already was in the first place. So even after all the healing, there is still a level of danger and risk associated with the necrosis.

So then we start the radiation.

They WERE telling me 40-60% chance of beating this thing, Now they are saying it's closer to the 40%. BUT.....there is still hope :)

So I had to go and ask, "Well, what happens if the radiation doesn't work? or we have to stop it because it's killing me?"

MENTAL NOTE ****** DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS OF YOUR DOCTOR THAT YOU ARE NOT YET PREPARED TO HEAR AN ANSWER TO ******

Should we find ourselves in that predicament, there is a "Hail Mary" surgery that would see me lose my entire tongue, the larger portion of my esophagus, and my vocal chords. We would have to bypass food intake, and I would have a permanent feeding device attached. The Quality of life would be poor, but it would possibly give me another 10 years of life on this amazing planet.

Should I find myself staring that challenge in the face, then I will face it head on. I will kick, scream, cry, crawl, fight, and learn my way into a new way of life, and a new way of living it.

I have never in my life been more terrified than I find myself today. I have never been more angry than I find myself today.

My fingers resist the words as I try to type them... they're as afraid to ask as I am....

What can tomorrow possibly hold?