Pre-Surgery Meet-n-Greet!

CT Scan of the tumor

Today I had my final pre-surgery meeting with the surgeon who will be resecting the disease from my body.  It was a bit surprising in that she actually listened to me the last time with respect to me having some reservations about things that I didn't necessarily want her removing from my body.  The larynx and trachea were the primary subject of much of the discussion, but ultimately I let her know that she is free to take whatever she needs to in the battle against this aggressive infection.  As I told her, I choose the possibility of life over the guarantee of the ability to speak.  I don't like talking anyways.  That, and it would give Jessica the ability to blame my refusal to speak on a physical limitation versus me just being an asshole.  There is concern that it has infiltrated my trachea, so she wanted my consent to take portions of that if necessary.  Other than that, there is not much new to report.  Still going to lose the thyroid (and hopefully all of the cancer) and a decent amount of skin.  She thinks the plastic surgeons will do the pectoral flap after she does what she needs to, so likely I will be down one chest muscle.  So be it.  I think my new motto will be I choose the possibility of life.  It was reiterated that they have never seen this before, so they largely don't know what to expect.  The official plan is to assess the entire situation while I am unconscious on the table and they can probe and prod without any objections from me.

PET image of tumor (the bright thing)

The one thing that I am having a problem with is that fact that I will be put under anesthesia and will not know what happens to me until I wake up after surgery.  Something about that is frightening to me.  Even when I wake up, I will be all kinds of hopped up on the good stuff, so I imagine it won't sink in until later.  Ultimately it does not matter, I have given them permission to do whatever they need to and I want them to get it in its entirety.  I just don't like the thought of not knowing anything about what they are doing/did to me until I emerge from medically induced night-night.  She expects me to be in the hospital for a minimum of 3 days, but she was somewhat reassuring about my recovery time, but again, it depends on the extent of the surgery.  Hopefully within a week I will be functioning at a quasi-normal level, my goal will be to be up and moving in the hospital the day after surgery.  I have found in the past that the quicker I fight through the initial pain and physical limitations, the better I do overall.  The previous two surgeries I have been up and moving the day after surgery, so I feel this is an attainable goal.  After the initial recovery, it will likely be 6 weeks before I would start the chemoradiation treatments.  6 weeks of recovery followed by 6 weeks of radiation and chemo.  The fun is about to begin.

PET image with arrow pointing at second tumor

On the lighter side of things, I have been on a bucket list kick of sorts with foods that I want to eat before I have to check out of the normal eating game for a while.  Today was the MONTE CRISTO, an amazing culinary experience that involves a normal, everyday sandwich that is battered and deep fried to perfection, then dusted with powdered sugar and served with raspberry preserves for dipping and enough curly fries to serve a family of 4.  It was amazing and I am only able to eat about half of the sandwich.  It is such a beautifully gluttonous experience and I loved every minute of it.  Tomorrow I am going to get subway and meet the boys for lunch at school at their request and that should be a lovely experience.

Me and my sandwich!

In closing, I am set to get one last phone call from the surgeon on Monday.  She is going to discuss the surgery with various people now that she has my full consent to do what needs to be done and they can finish planning.  Come Monday morning I have an early morning CT scan and an appointment with anesthesia and then my appointments are finished.  Tuesday morning it will be another early morning arrival to MD Anderson in the medical center and then a 6 to 10 hour surgery.  3 hours for the ENT surgeon and the remainder for the cleanup operation.  At this point, I can only hope that all goes well and that everything goes better than expected and I come out on the other side with minimal permanent effects.  Time will tell, but it should be a hell of a ride in the coming days.