If you have been diagnosed with SCC of the neck, chances are you will be going through at least some of what I've gone through, maybe much more. Perhaps my story will help you in providing information, or even decision making.
I've divided my story into four parts:
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Chapter 1: Prediagnosis, Official diagnosis, Telling Family Members, What are my Options? and First Surgery. I try to describe what these tasks and events were like to go through, and how they went.
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Chapter 2 : Radiation Treatments. This covers my 38 treatments, from pre treatment planning to "The Last Day!"
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Chapter 3: Radical Neck Dissection. This covers the surgery to remove the metastatic tumor from my left neck, radiation reassessment, followup visit, and up the 2nd week after surgery.
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Chapter 4:
On 2/6/99 I created a new chapter - Chapter 4. This was done to help keep the information on this site more manageable. (Basically, I just moved all the post radiation comments here because chapter 2 was getting too big!). As I continue to add any news, this is where you will find it . . . There will be a link at the top of the page that will take you to the most recent entry.
There is a lot of reading here, that is why I chose to break things up into four chapters. Click on the chapter you want to read. Or print it for later reading. Good luck to you!
I'd like to thank:
- My wonderful wife Kathy for her support throughout this ordeal. And for her help in researching and proofreading my writing! I love you dear.
- The great people I met in the AOL radiotherapy message board. Some of the info that ended up here, I discovered there! It's a great resource . . .
- And of course,the members of my Wellness Community Group. These folks are probably the only people (I know) who really understand how it feels to go through this. This group of exceptional people has been an enormous help to me in my ordeal!
- BDS