Some Encouraging News, Some Less So, SFL, and 6 Wonderful Years

I had two appointments this week with doctors.  The first was with the oral surgeon who did the debridement in April.  He thinks that the healing in that area is off to a good start, and he is optimistic that I can avoid the would-be next step in this treatment progression--a jaw resecting.  I'm not out of the woods quite yet, but I can see the edge of the forest--sort of.

My other appointment was with a special opthamologist who examined me for the blurred vision I've had since starting hyperbaric treatments last August.  Blurred vision is a common temporary side effect, but mine did not clear up between the two sets of treatments, or since the end of the last set.  I joked around for ten months that I was legally blind, and guess what? I am!  If they had changed the big "E" at the top of the eye chart to any other letter, I would not have known what it was--so I got that one right.  Below that, I couldn't even guess at it.

They did some tests and it looks like I'm at the early stages of developing cataracts in both eyes.  The likely cause is corticosteriods given to me to reduce swelling in my neck during the radiation treatments three years ago.  Sure enough, my search on the web indicated that this is a known side effect--under the "rare but severe" category.  The plan is to get fitted for new glasses ASAP so I can drive again, and then monitor the cataracts' progress.  At some point, though, cataract surgery will happen--just a matter of how long into the future.

So, let's take stock here.  First I get diagnosed with base of tongue cancer--which unfortunately is not rare anymore.  But, my cancer cells are mucoepidermoidal, which are found in less than 5% of these cases.  Down the road I develop osteoradionecrosis, which occurs in only about 10% of head/neck cancer patients.  For the vast majority of those people, ORN comes and goes one time.  Mine is chronic, and so I head into nearly a year's worth of treatments that include the dreaded hyperbarics, two extracted teeth, and a debridement. That series of events appears to be coming to a good ending, but then I'm told yesterday that I have the "rare but severe" side effect of cataracts from meds I took three years back.

So, with those kinds of odds in my life why is it that when I play the lottery I can't get more than one number on any line of my ticket?  Well, there's three kinds of luck.  Good Luck, Bad Luck, and  SFL (it'll come to you), which I appear to have plenty of in the last three years--medically related.

But today is June 1 and the sixth anniversary of the luckiest day in my life--when I married Terry.  Without her I would not be alive to write this, or enjoy the many years I expect to have as a cancer survivor.

Mike