I took Bina of course, but also Oscar, a colleague from work who is a native dutch speaker with us to avoid any possible misunderstandings and we shuffled into the Dr's office ready to have him pronounce sentence.
But he didn't in fact it was all good news...no spread to the lymph glands, and even better they were only going to do a partial thickness resection, in other words just remove the chunk that is around the tumor. There is also going to be a partial neck dissection as a precaution..this is actually a bit nastier than the jaw resection but better safe than sorry.
What this means is mega...
1st no need to reconstruct the jaw, at least not yet. I will lose some tissue and bone but they don't need to replace it. They will stretch my cheek skin over to make new gum and the lost teeth (3..maybe 4) will be replaced later in the year when the jaw heals with implants.
2nd I should not lose the feeling in my lips or tongue, at least not permanently which would have happened (to my lip) on a full resection.
3rd...most important for me of course...unless theres an emergency....no trach :D
Overall the surgery is much shorter, and recovery time a lot quicker. I'll have a big scar on my neck that will fade in time and the beard has to go for a while (awww) but thats something I can live with.
No trach, no feeding tube, no bone harvest no no no..lots of no's and all good.
And the letter for Radiotherapy.......a mistake..They sent me someone elses letter, I had a phone call from the dept apologizing for the error and accepting that those letters were only sent if something bad was discovered in the biopsies and scans...doh...that really did scare me so much, so what a relief.
And the good news keeps on coming....when we got back home I checked the mail, and we got our mortgage :D our move is on, and I'll be easily fit enough to cope with it all.
now...where do I go to buy a lottery ticket.
The smile of a very happy and relieved man just after our appointment at the hossie. I've been grinning like that all day...kinda crazy when you consider I still have to have a big op, but its all relative ;)
note...there does however seem to be a small fault in Bina's camera.....it has made some of my hairs appear grey...I don't have grey hairs of course, so it must be the camera.
Ahthankyew
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