Radiation Begins Today and Matt is READY

Today is a big day: Matt undergoes his first of 38 treatments of radiation today, at Methodist. Oh boy. But he is ready freddy - proud of having gained a nice chunk of weight in preparation for radiation. This as ordered by the doctors, he reminds me to tell everyone ("and don't judge me!" he says). He also says he thought he would be able to hit 200 (such a goal) but just couldn't...all this after eating like a pig, every day, once the mouth healed. Check him out at 196 lbs.

Then we have an appointment with a Park Nicollet medical oncologist, Dr. Oa, right after. We are meeting with her primarily to finalize the decision re: yes or no to adding concurrent chemotherapy to Matt's treatment regime.

On that front, it is looking like Matt really should get the chemo. If yes, while he/we are prepared for the worse in terms of adverse side effects, he/we are thinking that maybe it won't be that bad.

One of the big news items from yesterday was a call from Dr. M at Mayo. They had requested and received the original biopsy slides of the 'pomegranate' (the neck lymph node) to look into finalizing once and for all, whether the node/tumor was extra-capsullary or not. Damn. It turns out the node WAS extra-capsullary which means the cancer was 'oozing' through its walls and into Matt's neck tissues. That combined with the fact that Matt's tonsil had positive margins means he has two out of two factors that recommend themselves for the additional treatment of chemo. Matt has to make the decision by Friday but I think he/we may end up doing it today with Dr. Oa...we will let you all know.