Friday, May 11, 2007

Course of Treatment

Today we saw my radiation oncologist. As soon as my oral surgeon gives him the go ahead that I am healed enough, he will start treatments. It won't be extensive as the radiation I had 2 years ago. This will be a silver dollar sized area. It will be for five weeks along with an IV treatment called Erbitux which a medical oncologist will administer. It is not a chemo drug. It has been shown very effective in treating squamous cell carcinoma to the head and neck. That is the kind of cancer I have been dealing with since 2004 which is oral as well. I will see my surgeon next Tuesday to determine when I have healed enough to begin the treatments. A matter of prayer would be my scheduled trip to Colorado from June 20-27. I hope I don't have to cancel it.

As a post script I will give you a little bit of history of my cancers.
*Breast cancer 11/2000, lumpectomy, clean margins, no lymph nodes tested positive, radiation treatments
*Tongue cancer-SCC- 4/04, surgery, clean margins, no lymph nodes tested positive, no

treatments
*Squamous cell carcinoma spread to gum area 1/05, surgery, clean margins, no treatments
*SCC spread to lump in neck 7/05, surgery, one lymph node tested positive, radiation treatments
*SCC spread to gum area 12/06, surgery, superficial and clean margins, no treatments
*SCC spread through blood stream to knot in neck muscle, surgery, no lymph nodes tested positive, to begin radiation & Erbitux

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