Still muddled, but at least I have a path!!

Two posts in one day!  I feel like such an overachiever!  

I now have a path forward.  Turns out, when MD Anderson doctors let you know you are probably going to die, they like to then leave you guessing for almost a week as to what the recommended course of treatment is.  Granted, there are lots of doctors to talk with and options to mull over, but the one person left out of the communication loop is the unfortunate patient, in this case, ME!!  Anyway, we talked with the medical oncologist and got the recommended path forward that gives me any hope for a curative solution.  Many other paths lead only to palliative options, but this one gives me a small chance of a complete cure.  So that's it, this is where we go now.

First, let me say thank you to all of you following along with this journey.  Many of you contact myself, or Jessica or leave notes on the blog or Facebook, and I would like to give my heartfelt thanks for your concern, thoughts, prayers, and anything else you are doing directly and indirectly for me and my family.  This is not an easy road that I am forced to walk down and, if I had the choice, I would be walking elsewhere.  Honestly, from the beginning, this blog was meant to serve as a record of my struggles in writing so that when my sons were old enough to understand they could read what I went through and maybe find comfort in my own words as they grew older and understand the choices that I had to make.  It has now become so much more to me, and also (I think) to Jessica and those that chose to follow along.  It has been hard, harder than anything that I have ever done and I feel that it is going to be even harder in the coming months.

There are no more biopsies scheduled or appointments this week.  I can stay home and enjoy my house and my family and going to work and maybe just feel quasi-normal for a few more days.  The plan in place is to go forward with intense chemotherapy with drugs that I have not yet been given and hope that my tumor responds by either not growing or shrinking.  This part will last 6 weeks and will being next Tuesday, the 30th of September.  After that, I will have a CT scan to assess the progression of disease since my last scan.  If the results of that are promising and no new issues develop, I will go forward with another radical surgery roughly 4 weeks after finishing chemotherapy.  This, realistically, is my only CURATIVE option.  Everything else would fall in the PALLIATIVE category and I feel that if there is ANY possibility of a cure, I have to take that road.  There are still treatment options after this, but at that point they are guaranteed to be palliative.  I have to go the route of a possible cure for everybody, for my wife, for my kids, for my mom and dad, for my sister and her family, for my brother and his family, for the family that I married in to (morning sausage anyone??) and for the countless others that have shared my life and helped mold me into who I am today.  This disease has already taken so much: part of my tongue, my right pectoral muscle, much of the underlying structure of my neck, a normal looking neck, my original voice, my ability to lead a completely normal life and will take my life one day...but I will be able to say that I did everything I could to fight and I always did it with the intention of saving my life.  It wasn't and will not be easy, but the path to a cure is the direction I have always taken and will continue to take.  Just a small chance, but I will take that chance.

And so onward we go...the next six weeks will determine the rest of my life.  All I can do is fill myself with hope that my body responds to the chemo and that I can have the surgery.  Side note quickly, there was going to be another biopsy this week, but consensus is that it wouldn't be reachable by any standard biopsy means and so we forego that in lieu of starting chemo NOW.  Starting on the 30th of September, I will begin weekly chemo regimens with drugs including Carboplatin, Docetaxel and Cetuximab.  Pretty sure my tumor is already shrinking just seeing their names written down.  Here's to hope!!