Monday, March 16

Tomorrow is day 1 of the beginning of the healing. Everything up to now has been trying to find what all needs to be healed and where it's located.

The lump on my neck is being removed tomorrow. It hasn't been there long, so hopefully it doesn't have offshoots growing into a lot of structural components in my neck. They are going to cut out anything associated with the lump and anything else they've found that is a site of origin or a site it's spread to.

So far, it's scheduled for in and out in the same day, but I've been told to expect an overnight stay. I've run into some unpleasant reports of what people find after this surgery. I've got to be (and am) prepared for bad news about what all has to be removed.

Any damage the lump is going to do is already done. That damage would be the result of invasion of surrounding structures and requiring removal or trimming of important parts. Once the lump is removed, the remnants typically respond very well to radiation.

Hopefully, they've already located the source and it's in a place they can get to or a place that responds well to radiation. If that's the case, I've got a couple months of feeling like crap from the radiation and then a couple of years of watching for recurrence and that pretty much wraps up the treatment and observation.

After all the bad news I got in a short time frame, I'm confident I've hit the bottom end of it and I'm going to start getting better news starting tomorrow. I'll try to post a follow-up about what was found on Wednesday.