Headed to Recovery

Surgery is finished.  The plastic surgeon came out and said that he did very well for the whole thing.  9 hours from the start time, he is headed to recovery.  Anesthesia is trying to wake him up.  I am anxious to get back there and see him.  I'll only get to be with him for 15 minutes.  I'll post again with more news later this evening.  Hopefully, things start happening & I'll be gathering our belongings to go to where he'll be sleeping.

2:00 Update

Sorry for the delay in this one, I might have lost it for a minute.  The head & neck surgeon is still working on him.  She is trying to get clear margins on the clavicle.  There was the giant tumor that was around the thyroid.  And there was one half the size just behind the right collar bone.  Did they already get all of it out around the thyroid?  What have they done around or with the airway?  I'm not sure about any of this.  The nurse liaison wasn't sure.  She also isn't sure when this surgeon could estimate being finished & letting plastics take over.  I'll get another update at 4.

PRAY! FIGHT!! WIN!!!

Noon Update

He's doing well.  They have finished taking away the skin that needs to be removed.  They have gotten to the point they have clear margins on that.  They are starting the process of removing the thyroid.  More news at 2.

PRAY! FIGHT! WIN!

Jessica Here.....

Good Morning Everyone!!!  This is Jessica.  It's my first blog post EVER!  I'm a guest here.  This is a great tool for Bryce to get out what is on his mind, but it's also been a very useful tool to keep our friends and family informed.  And I hear there is a way to subscribe to this blog so that you know when there is a post.  I'm not sure how you do that, but it is a real thing.

SOOOOoooooo.....  this morning, I'd like to thank a few people for things and make sure this works.  And by works, I mean that I need to make sure I know what I'm doing.  So if you read this, leave a comment so that I know you're there.  Actually, anytime you read these posts, comment!!!  I know that I read them!  I love hearing from you guys!

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone.  We get offers for food and help with the boys and SO many more things.  I'm not sure how much we can thank everyone.

Joe & Joann -AKA: Mom & Dad- I have so many things to be thankful for.  The yard work, the cleaning of my house so that Bryce can be comfortable when we get home, the child care this week (and all of those other times!!!).  I love you so much.  And thank you will never cover my gratitude.  Thanks Mom and Dad

Jerrie & Gary -AKA: In.laws- You have provided us with so much support and love.  I feel closer to you now because of all of this cancer stuff.  Thank you for so many things.... our fancy bed, taking the boys this weekend for their cousins birthday party (and all of those other times you take them too) , for the dinners & lunches while Bryce has been living and working in another city, the house he gets to sleep in.  This list could go on and on.  Thank you Jerrie & Gary

Jennifer -AKA: JSauce- You have provided us with so much help that the list is too long here.  But most recently, you let me bring you 2 little boys at FIVE FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING so that I could get Bryce to the med center by 6 for another CT scan.  Thanks HotSauce

Jennie -AKA: Jennie from the Branch- She is our neighbor and friend, has toted my boys around while we are taking care of business.  She's fed us meals and provided a get away from stress in their personal version of Shangri La when needed.  Thank you Jennie, Cy & Gabe.

Kristina -AKA: NeeNee- You always check in on us.  The offer to take care of Bryce after chemo was a big undertaking.  You had no idea that you would have to pick him up off the floor & drive him back home.  I know how scary that must have been for you.  But I'm beyond thankful that you were there for him.  I can't imagine what could have happened if you hadn't been.  Thank you Neen

Zakk -AKA: Brother from Another Mother- ok...... so we've never actually called you that, but you are like another brother to Bryce.  The quiet, yet solid, bond you and Bryce share may not be noticed by everyone.  However, it is one that I personally think is so special.  You have always gone out of your way to think of Bryce's needs or different things that he would like.  Thank you Zakk

Dave & Ginny -AKA: Stobb's California Division- I know that you can't physically be here during these times, but you have always done everything you can to help us with food and special gifts to entertain Bryce during recovery.  We all really enjoyed the video chat this weekend.  Thank you Dave & Ginny!!

JD & Debra -AKA: Little brother & SIL- Thank you for arranging the family pictures.  I knew I wanted to have family pictures done before this surgery.  I know Mom has wanted us to have them for so long too.  Thank you for arranging that.  I can't WAIT to see them!!!  :)

So here's a cool story....  Last night Bowen had his end of season soccer party.  The coach had sent an email to the parents asking that no one pitch in to get him a gift.  Instead, he took up a collection to give to us.  Both Coach Kevin & I cried.  It was such a wonderful & giving surprise.   There are so many things and people that I'm thankful for.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something or someone.  But things are starting to get cooking here in the waiting room.  He's already back there in surgery.  They pulled him back around 7.  The surgery will be between 5-10 hours.  I'm already looking forward to getting him home though.  I know he rests easier in his own bed.  And we got him all set up for when he arrives at home too.  The contractors are gone.  All rooms are painted.  The bathrooms are more beautiful AND FUNCTIONAL than they have ever been!!!!  There is now a TV set up in the room.  My Dad is letting the cable man in tomorrow to set him up for the summer.  My parents bought a DVD player for that TV so that he can watch the movies Dave & Ginny sent him.  He can really recover in his fancy adjustable bed with all of that in there.  He shouldn't have any need to get up for anything now!!!

THIS JUST IN!!!  

His surgery technically started at 8:27AM.  He is stable.  His head & neck surgeon is still working on him.  If I don't see her before noon, they will send the nurse liaison again at that time.  SO that's it!!!  More news at noon!!!!

PRAY! FIGHT! WIN!

Jess -AKA: 1st time blogger, long time reader, wife of 10+ years 

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.

Head wound coming!

...so off I went to stay with my sister in Dripping Springs, just to stay with someone should there be any issues.  I did not expect there to be any, I had chemo before and worked basically through the whole process.  No big deal.  I perhaps should have respected the seriousness of my situation and what my body has gone through and what they have done to me recently.  I went to work on Tuesday and worked all day.  I felt OK, but I did begin to deteriorate as the day wore on and by the time I got to my sisters house after work I did not feel good.  Flu-like symptoms is the best way I can describe it.  Full body aches, light headed, my bones did hurt by this point and just a general malaise about my being that made me not feel quite right.  I did manage to eat dinner with them, albeit cast out like a leper sitting alone at the bar counter top (JUST KIDDING NEEN!).  After dinner I set up my pillows in a spot on their couch and prepared to settle in for the evening.  I wanted only to sleep.  Sleep deeply and uninterrupted for the entire night so that I would wake up feeling fresh and rejuvenated and ready to face the new day at hand.  That is not what happened at all.  I slept intermittently until about 12:30 am, at which point I decided to get up and head off to the bathroom and then take another pain pill before settling back in to the couch for the rest of the night.  I got through half of that scenario with no problem until I found myself with a pain pill in my hand standing in the kitchen extremely disoriented and trying to figure out where a light switch was.  I remember opening the refrigerator to get some light to try to point me in the direction of a switch and then suddenly I was on the floor and there was no light anywhere around me.  I believe that to be fall #1 in the series to come.  I contemplated just staying there, but figured it would be better to somehow get back to the couch and it is extremely uncomfortable for me to lay flat with the pain I currently have and as a result of the two previous surgeries.  I think I was in the area in their house around the pantry and I don't remember exactly how I got up, but I did manage to get to my feet.  I worked my way over to their sink where I found my water cup and was going to attempt to fill it when fall #2 occurred and I grazed the front of my head on the counter top as I headed down to the floor this time.  I really had to work to get up at this point and I pulled myself up using the sink and tried to steady myself.  I realized that there was no possible way I was going to get myself anything to drink, and I still had the pain pill clutched in my hand so I simply threw it in my mouth and tried to swallow it.  By this point, I believe my sister had heard a number of crashes and was on the scene to investigate.  I don't remember the next series of events explicitly but this is what I am told happened next.  When she came out and saw me I was headed from their kitchen back into the living room and the couch where I was sleeping.  I walked straight into a wall and then fell directly backwards and the back of my head met their beautiful stained concrete floors.  It is at this point that my memories kick back up.  I can remember laying there and her being right next to me and a bit concerned that I had just fallen.  It was a loud enough impact and commotion that my two nieces woke up and came out to see what was going on.  Now the whole family was in on it!  We got me back up and on the couch, settled in amongst my pillows again and all I wanted was to go to sleep, but damn! did my head hurt.  Also there was a little bit of blood involved.  Luckily, the Vannoy household is no stranger to head wounds and they got me cleaned up (mostly) and a good sized bandage to cover the cut on my head.  

Winner: Concrete floor

It was at this point that I thought it might have been a little ambitious of me to try and work as much as possible in the two weeks between chemo round one and surgery number three.  I also convinced my sister that I was fine and that I didn't need to go to the hospital, a decision that I stand by even today.  I did eventually go to the hospital and even was admitted and stayed over night for observation, but at that moment I only thought about the extreme mess it would have caused and I knew I would rather go back and see my doctors first regardless.  So with another pain pill in me, a bandage on my head and a pillow to soak up the blood I attempted to once again drift off into peaceful slumber.  I do love my dear sister who spent the rest of the night waking me up every so often to check and make sure I was ok.  I know that she struggled mightily with the decision and wanted nothing more than to take me to the hospital immediately, but I very much thank her for respecting my wishes at the time.  I didn't sleep well at all the rest of the night, but I very greatly appreciate everything she did for me.  I feel very sorry that I brought my chemo-cancer circus into her house and interrupted their normal routine and that my nieces had to witness the chaos that this disease rains down upon those it chooses to afflict.  That is not something that I wanted for them to have to witness or think about or deal with at all.

All stapled up!

So now we had a new plan.  Kristina was going to drive me home and I was going to see the doctor.  She ended up driving me to La Grange and Jessica picked me up from there and off to the doctor we went.  We saw my medical oncologist, Dr. Jasani, who sent me over to Methodist West Emergency to get an MRI of my brain to rule out any neurological causes for my fall.  We arrived at about 2:30 PM at the ER.  I think I was admitted and in a hospital room at 11:30 PM.  They really rush through head injuries at the ER.  And apparently you have to tell EVERYBODY you come in contact with the events that led you to being at the ER down to the most insignificant detail.  I think I had to tell my entire medical history to no less than 30 people in that time period.  I also think that I have never been more tired in my entire life as I was that whole day.  I don't know why the guy who was emptying the sharps container in the room I was sitting in needed to know that I fell, had cancer, had two neck dissections and a partial glossectomy, received chemo the previous Friday, had radiation last year with concurrent chemo, have a recurrence of squamous cell carcinoma, have no other major medical issues, etc, but he asked and I told him.  I had quite a few tests conducted on me while at the hospital.  In the ER there was a CT of my head, followed by an MRI of my head.  The MRI machine is NOISY!  I had not had the pleasure of a head MRI up until that point.  It was also very confining, so those with claustrophobia issues, I would not recommend getting one of those.  Once I was admitted, the doctor decided he needed to do a neck CT and an ultrasound of the neck to check for arterial blood flow and/or obstructions.  A summary of the finding from all these tests: there is something growing uncontrollably in my neck and I have no tumor/swelling/bleeding/hemorrhaging in my brain.  Check!  I guess it felt somewhat reassuring to know that there was nothing in my brain that caused this recent episode but it is also a slap in the face that nothing else is wrong with me sans this extremely aggressive cancer that I can't seem to rid myself of.  It is a hard feeling to explain to people so I will just leave it at that.  This seems like a good place to break for now, there is more to follow but I feel I need to take a break.

The beginning of last week...

As I lay here in bed on this gorgeous Saturday afternoon with the windows open and a nice breeze flowing through the house, I feel like it is a good time to finally delve into the events that have occurred since the last time I wrote anything.  Things have not gone smoothly in the last week, to say the least.  I had chemo on Friday and then a week ago Saturday, I went to MD Anderson during the afternoon to get a shot that they told me would boost my white blood cell count so that I would be ready for surgery on the 13th.  I was informed as the shot was in my arm that the medicine would probably make my bones hurt.  That sounded fun and new and extremely exciting!  Sunday went by with no problems and then Monday was another all day excursion at MD Anderson meeting with more doctors.  I met with a doctor from Internal Medicine and his job was to clear me, in general health terms, for the surgery that they are about to perform on me.  I figured it would be OK when he opened with "Well, Mr. Stobb, you are the youngest patient I have seen in over a month...", so I figured he was used to seeing people in much more advanced stages of their lives.  What they want to be sure of is that my heart and main body systems can handle the stress of a lengthy surgery and that I am at a low risk level for having a heart attack on the table 8 hours into my surgery.  Everything about the internal workings of my body is great, sans the cancer.  I even found out that my cholesterol is not that bad these days.  That was a bit of a surprise considering my affinity for bacon-wrapped fried chicken, but a nice welcome bit of news nonetheless.  
By this point, I am starting to experience more pain similar to what I went through recovering from the last surgery and I am having to take something regularly to alleviate a lot of it.  It is primarily muscle pain in my head and neck and a lot in my left jaw that received a heavy dose of radiation.  Jessica and I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then shuffled off to our next appointment, Reconstructive Surgery.  A plastic surgeon will be involved in my surgery to reconstruct the neck to an extent that will be determined by how much the ENT surgeon must remove.  They said that the surgeons like to have Plastics involved to "clean up" after the fact.  I equated it to the ENT surgeon throwing a mortar in my neck and Plastics having to come in and fix it and I think they giggled.  Not sure that my sense of humor translates well in these types of situations, but I still try at times.  I also told him I didn't want to wake up with a huge set of fake boobs and I KNOW he at least chuckled at that.  There are three main options that they will do, listed in order of complexity.  A simple skin graft to cover the removed section of skin.  This would come from my chest or shoulder.  The next is a procedure that would somehow take one of my pectoral muscles in my chest and flip it over to cover the exposed surgical area.  Not exactly sure of the specifics on this one, other than it would be necessary if they need more of a muscular support structure in anticipation of the radiation exposure post surgery.  The third option is a free flap transplantation from my thigh to my neck, which would be the most involved and lengthy procedures (8-10 hours just for the reconstruction).  Along with increasing in complexity, each procedure also would have different hospital stay times.  I think the shortest amount of time I will be in the hospital will be 3-5 days, with more extensive surgery requiring a minimum of 7 days in.  All I have to do is sign my consent and let them slice and dice and on down the road we go!
After appointments it was back home to pick the kids up and grab a quick early dinner and then I was back off to Austin to work out the remainder of the week.  Or so I thought...(to be continued)