We Will Survive This

"Right, Bubba?"

I'm not talking about the Middle East being inches away from WWIII, or the  latest attempted power grab by the orange clown in the White House. No, this time it's more personal.

As many—if not most—of you know, I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer back in 2003. Through a combination of fortunate events (and damn good medical care), I came through it—although not without some battle scars—and have been cancer free for the last two decades.

Everything's been good, but lately I've been having more than the usual difficulty (a long-term effect of that previous course of radiation) swallowing. Stuff was getting caught on the way down, and while I've been able to successfully hack it back up and get it down on a second try, I was concerned enough that one day I reached down my throat and felt something—odd—on the back of my tongue. I made an appointment with my ENT. He ordered a CT scan and the results came back clear. Still, he shoved that infamous scope up my nose and down my throat and saw a spot where things had been getting caught. "Probably just an ulcer," he said, "but with your history let's be sure."

I was supposed to go in for a biopsy yesterday, but when I went in on Tuesday for my pre-op screening, we discovered that I was never told to discontinue one of my medications, so now it's rescheduled for this coming Monday.

It's not my first biopsy; it's usually an in-and-out the same day thing, but last time I had one done (this past November) I ended up in the hospital for several days because my blood-oxygen was remaining stubbornly low post-op. They finally decided that I had some kind of non-specific pulmonary infection and sent me home with a strong antibiotic and oxygen. It resolved itself in about a week, my numbers climbed back into the mid 90s and the oxygen generator went back.

But this time, as I got the pre-op paperwork from my insurance it mentioned not only the laryngoscopy with biopsy (expected), but also partial glossectomy. WTF? He's planning on cutting out a part of my tongue? This was not discussed. I spoke at length with a good friend who's been a nurse since probably I was in high school who managed to talk me off the ledge. She said that particular line item was in there because it was pretty standard, CYA stuff—especially with Medicare—in case he got in there, discovered it was not just an ulcer, and decided to excise the whole thing immediately.

This still has me a little freaked, mostly because of not knowing how it's going to affect speech and swallowing if he decides to take out a chunk of the back of my tongue for however long it takes for it to heal. And then of course, if the biopsy comes back as malignant, then there's all that to deal with, which—having been to that rodeo once already—I am most definitely not looking forward to going through again.

So if I go quiet—no pun intended—for some time after Monday, it's because I have other things on my mind…