Something to be Thankful for on Thanksgiving

Well, we blessed and have lots to be thankful for in general, but are feeling particularly grateful today in that this whole cancer thing is not looking half so bleak as a week ago. Ye gads, what a ride this all is! Our heads are still spinning after yesterday but in a mostly good way.

As I mentioned in yesterdays post, the visit to Mayo was great albeit not anything like we had expected. We checked in at 7:00am (leaving the Cities around 5am, with Chapin in tow. It was really really great to have him with us for all sorts of reasons. See him with Matt to the left.) and as only Mayo can do, was seeing Dr. O, and ENT specialist with cancer expertise, by 8:30am. Meet Dr. O to the right.

It was actually pretty funny in that we had thought we would go through the now 10-page questionnaire Matt had prepared. We assumed we would be spending quite some time with the dr. but, after asking Matt to give a quick summation of his situation and asking him what we needed from him, he said let's start with an exam and see what's what.

What followed was amazing - but also incredibly uncomfortable for Matt: Dr. O examined Matt's neck, mouth, tongue and tonsils by hand. He was nice as pie but was serious about feeling EVERYTHING. As Matt says, the exam was as subtle as Patten's advance in Europe with the 3rd armored division! (You know Matt and his military analogies.)

Dr. O said he was 99% sure the cancer was in Matt's right tonsil - he said he could feel it. Wow. (Cathy note - okay everyone: just you try to feel your tonsils yourselves. See how far you can stick your fingers/hand down your throat to feel where they are - and see if you don't gag big time.) (I am still a little freaked out that he could feel it, this when the PET scan come back clear?! And does it mean it is growing fast since Doogie didn't see it when he biopsied the tonsils 4 weeks ago?) But the net net is that Matt has a tonsillectomy scheduled already with Dr. W on Dec. 4 (a week from tomorrow) so we consider ourselves well on our way around treatment - yeah!

As it relates to treatment, Dr. O came at it all with a very different perspective from the Un. of MN team. It made our heads truly spin - it was beyond surreal. In short:

1) He does not believe in chemo therapy for something like this. He said the risks of chemo - in this situation - is actually more dangerous than the cancer. Huh. But we were happy to hear that.

2) He said that next steps and final recommendations around treatment would/should be totally dependant on the combination of factors, specifically revisiting the infected lymph node they took out and looking at its state with how the tonsils look when they come out. He said if the tonsils are 'clean edged' AND the node isn't extra-capillerous or something like that, that he would question whether Matt would even need radiation therapy - WHAT?! However, and this is more likely the case I think? if the node is/was extra-capi whatever and even if the tonsils come out clean, Matt will still have to have radiation but, based on everything we have been told to-date, it probably can be targeted radiation. If targeted, that means Matt will hopefully (remember this is us, laymen, interpreting all the various opinions and recommendations to-date) be able to save his salivary glands, etc. etc. It still will be uncomfortable, but not half as bad as we were envisioning.

So, we are feeling really positive right now and eager to meet with Dr. W to see what he thinks on Monday. Also to get scheduled with Dr. H from Methodist again to get his opinion. We probably won't do that (final?) consult until after the tonsils come out, but we'll see what Dr. W says. In our minds, while the Un. of MN team was great, they are just too aggressive for our taste buds (no pun intended) so we are thinking we will end up at Methodist for whatever, if and as needed. It all still means Matt has cancer and a nasty one at that, but getting through to some form of 'cancer-free' state or remission or whatever one wants to call it, is looking very very good.

This is our news of Thanksgiving! More on Monday.

Blessings to you all....