Day: July 9, 2013

meeting with dr ryu this morning, he felt it was time to start looking toward next steps (ie after hospital discharge). hes going to schedule a visit with a radiation oncologist, but as seems to be my pattern, im still in a “gray area.”

on the one hand, the tumor removed was 2.5 cm across – an inch-wide ball of cancer inside my tongue explains a lot about how much discomfort i was experiencing prior to the surgery. with that size, radiation is viewed as mandatory.

but on the other hand, full biopsy of all removed tissue (tongue and neck lymphs) still reveals zero metastasis, which is quite rare in stage three oral cancers.

so we have to decide how aggressive to be with the radiation.

keeping mind im currently one armed, i really felt like id achieved something grand when i changed three pillowcases today.

to be honest, my hope going into this was that i wouldnt spend 100 percent of my blogposts talking about my illness and the cicumstances around it. but the primary source of my blogs normal diversity is in the diversity of my day to day life: books being read, internet being explored, work and social interactions. less of that is happenning right now both from lack of opportunity but also from an attention span limited by spells of exhaustion. for example, i read parts of two books today – but less than two full pages in each case.

all which is to say. . . the pillowcases really were one of the highlights, along with a certain bureaucratic undertaking that curt assisted me with that hopefully means my brother can come here sooner than august.