Following and MRI scan and 3 biopsies my husband was diagnosed with throat cancer. The tumour, about 3cm in size, was at the base of his tongue on the right hand side and it was suspected to have moved into at least one lymph node. He was officially diagnosed and was booked in for a bilateral neck dissection, he was released less than 2 weeks later. It has been has been 5 weeks yesterday since his op took place and today he is starting 6weeks of chemo (6cycles) and radio (30 cycles).
The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur so I guess I am using this to record what happened as the most bandied around words by the consultants have been UNUSUAL & UNEXPECTED.
1. It took three biopsies (this apparently never happens if they don't get it on the 1st go they defo get it on the 2nd attempt) to eventually confirm that the tumour they suspected to be malignant was, however the biopsy sample showed no signs of the HPV virus.
2. My husbands tumour had a hard, inflamed outer layer (which neither of the consultants had come across when dealing with many throat cancer patients) made it difficult to extract a sample that showed the cancerous cells they were looking for. The consultant advised that surgery would be the best option followed by some light chemo/radio clean up sessions depending which the tumour responded to better post surgery.
3. Post op and healing remarkably well he is released from hospital after a week and three days into a two week stay, he has an NG feeding tube fitted, he has to re-learn how to swallow, so apart from a few small spoons of very soft food this is his only source of nutrition.
4. 2 weeks and 2 days post op MDT meeting. The consultant informs us that she has good news and bad news. The bad news is that the cancer was very aggressive and did not follow 'normal' patterns, instead of spreading out to lymph nodes and travelling to different areas that way the tumour had invaded into muscle tissue. Because of the aggressiveness of the tumour instead of a light 'clean up' dose of chemo/radio therapy he will now have to have high doses of them both to ensure there are no microscopic cancer cells remaining. The good news is that after removing the tumour and testing the surrounding tissue no cancerous cells were dectected and that while biopsy showed that the HPV was not the cause further testing revealed that it was caused by the HPV. This is good news this type is highly responsive to treatment so prognosis is very good.
5. A downside to the intensive chemo & radio therapy is the progress he has made with eating will be lost when the treatment kicks in. He is booked in for a RIG feeding tube to be fitted.
6. After 31 days of feeding through an NG tube, my husband goes into hospital for a RIG to be fitted, this is a three night hospital stay as the tube is inserted directly into the stomach via a smallish valve which is sewn on the skin outside of the stomach. This is done under local anaesthetic, after all he has gone through he said that this tiny procedure has been the most painful to date.
7. So here we are 35 post surgery and starting chemo and radio, so far he is feeling fine, the oncologist said the side effect probably won't kick in till around week 3 of treatment and that the following weeks would be 'awful' and my husband would have a 'rough time'.
Despite that glowing endorsement my husband has remained positive and upbeat from diagnosis to surgery. I hope he can maintain this outlook for the next 6 weeks of treatment. As I said above I am keeping this as a type of record of what happened during one of the strangest times the world has ever gone through. I will be aiming to update this as often as I can and I hope our experiences can one day help someone who is going through a similar thing.
GEM xx
