Been here before, sort of.

So here we are again in an all too familiar situation.  It has been quite some time since I have written anything, mostly because I had very little to say.  I could have chronicled all the crappy days of laying in bed with no energy to get up, an awesomely annoying rash all over my head, chest and back, and a mouth full of sores that make talking, eating and drinking a rather unpleasant experience.  I opted not to bore everybody with these happenings, but now I am headed down the next path towards what hopefully is many more years of life ahead of me.
To recap, I just finished a 6 week cycle of chemotherapy with infusions of Carboplatin, Taxotere and Cetuximab on weeks 1 and 4, and then Cetuximab only weeks 2, 3, 5 and 6.  The three drug infusion was the worst and led to about a week of really crappy existence, but we all made it through and can now talk about it in the past tense.  The Cetuximab gave me a rather bothersome rash that persists even today, but we are only 9 days out from my last treatment.  The goal with all of this was to stop the growth of the tumor that is near my larynx, and best case would be shrinkage of the tumor prior to another surgery.  Scans were yesterday, results obtained today at a visit with the surgeon who would perform my laryngectomy.  The tumor did indeed respond to treatment and has actually shrunk in size and measurable intensity on the PET scan.  In addition, there is no evidence that the disease has spread anywhere else in my body and this leads to the chance that one more surgery could possibly cure me completely.  Again, it is a very slight chance, but it is still a chance.  And so we are now in a similar situation to what we were in earlier this year.  I am now headed for surgery #4 to once again try to rid myself of my squamous cell carcinoma.  Difference is this time there is no post surgery radiation or chemo to help clean up any surprises they find once they are in there.  The surgery will either work or it won't but this is the choice that I have made and feel like this gives me the only chance for a cure and the best chance to maximize my time in this world.
This surgery will remove my larynx, thus disconnecting my mouth from my lungs and rendering me unable to speak naturally.  I will have a hole in the base of my neck (properly called a stoma) from which I will breathe for the rest of my days.  It will have a little filter on it that I change every day that keeps bad out and helps humidify the air before it reaches my lungs.  Initially, I will communicate with an electrolarynx held up to my neck when I need to say anything.  There will also be plastic surgeon involvement to reconstruct the area as need, how extensive this will be is unknown at this point.  Time will tell, I suppose.  I have speech options available, the best of which is a TEP (tracheoesophageal puncture) where they connect my trachea to my esophagus and put in  a voice prosthesis that I can, with a little extra effort, force air into my throat and speak quasi-normally.  The only thing I would never be able to do again is swim.  I would have a feeding tube inserted during surgery and likely would have it for a minimum of 8 weeks.  This is what I have to look forward to in about a week and a half.  December 2nd is the day.