Number 4 - done!

Today I had two appointments. One for doing the radiation and the other one with the dentist. While doing radiation I'll have to see the dentist once a week too. One side affect of the radiation is that the jaw-bone won't be supplied with sufficient blood circulation. Infections can lead to a destruction of the bone. Thus it's very important to keep everything under control. This is also the reason why before radiation can begin, teeth need to be checked and fixed  if required. The dentist was happy with what she saw.  

While doing the planning CT doctors have found suspicious lymph nodes. They are located on the right below the middle layer in the front. Today I thought I've felt them to be bigger than usual. Most likely left overs from my last surgery. We had removed about 25 lymph nodes on the left side end of June 2008. Somehow the entire middle layer in the front on the left but we'd also removed 5 on the right side - a little bit lower than the middle layer. As said in a previous blog, in January 2006 the middle layer on the right was already removed. One has more than 200 lymph nodes in the neck. So no worries if they remove 50 - 80. Unfortunately you don't really know the path of the lymph drain. Even though the right side has been removed, drain from the left must have flown over to the right. 

Doctors always said, don't worry when a lymph node hurts. It seems to be a good sign. What they mean is that the node hurts because there seems to be an infection and most likely the node is swollen because of the infection. They say a tumor positive node doesn't hurt. In my case they always hurt. My theory is that they become active once there is an infection. I'll discuss this theory with the guru oncologist once he contacts me again. The oncologist isn't the same person as the radio-oncologist. So far I've treated my cancer with surgery and radiation. Mostly I've been in contact with a neck, nose and ear specialist and the radio-oncologist. Friends of mine also have arranged contact with a guru oncologist who has agreed to look into my case and discuss findings with me. He has contacted me once over phone and apologized for not calling me earlier. He said he has looked into my case but needed to do some more research. Radiation is the right next step he said but if the tumor keeps being recessive there might be an anti body therapy. He didn't know enough about it back then and promised to call me again. You might wonder why there is no formal commitment -  I'm not his patient - he is doing this as a favor to the neck, nose & ear specialist and he seems to be dammed good.

So I guess the nodes I've felt today might be the same as the radio-oncologist have seen on the CT. I've a session with the radio-oncologist tomorrow. Interesting enough I haven't seen here since the first discussion. She was on vacation and I'm scheduled to see here only once a week. The radio sessions are all operated by other staff. 

More about all that after I've seen her tomorrow.