So I have cancer!

About four months ago I woke up with a minor sore throat. It wan’t a big deal and went away after I got some water in me. Got worse over a month and I went to urgent care. They thought it was thrush and kept giving me pills for two months.

Sept 14…

https://stfudamnit.com/ryan/C/1.JPG

Tube of truth. About a hour later I was eating some Dairy Queen and got a call that it looked like cancer. That was a Friday at 2PM. So I got to wait until Monday to see a ENT doctor for a closer look and biopsy.

Yup, cancer.

Here is the fucked up thing. It isn’t from smoking or drinking. Two ENT doctors, two oncologists, and one radiation dude all say it is from HPV. Yeah. The thing they want to vacinate for but it will made all the young ladies sluts..

So. A month ago I was living alone in my little depressing studio apartment when I found this out.

It took a while to tell my mom what was going on. Even though she was driving me to appts. Then I tasked her with telling my sister. My sister never called. She knows me well. She let me do things on my own scheduale.

So I figured I would be better off living with my sister in Porland and getting treated up here. So I just called my sister and told her I was moving in. She has a furnished basement with a bathroom and kitchen down here.

Things ended up going very fast.

ENT person on the 24th of Sept in Portland. Oct 3rd, dentist and radiologist. All my teeth removed on the 12th*. So many appiotments. Swallowing coach, oncologist, nutritionist, more dentist, mask*, scans, and so on.

My sister has been driving me. It has been about 30 hours a week for the last month of driving me and sitting in waiting rooms for her.

But Monday is the culmination of all this preperation…

Radiation, a hour later a feeding tube, two hours later chemo starts. Monday is going to be the worst day of my life.

But if things go well I will be cancer free in 7 weeks. I guess this is technacally Oropharyngeal Cancer. It isn’t like it is a vital organ. It is going to be horrible but I haven’t been given a chance of survival yet. They said they could always cut it out but it would make it difficult to speak and swallow for the rest of my life.

* (since the cancer is in the mouth the radiation would blast the shit out of my teeth killing them anyway. And if the teeth were still in there it increases the risk it could kill my jaw bone and then that would have to be removed.)

* The creepy mask made to hold my head in place when the radiation is done. https://stfudamnit.com/ryan/C/2.png