speech therapist

I saw the speech therapist for the first time this week. She analyzed my voice and determined some exercises that would help. I now have homework to do each day to exercise the appropriate muscles. Basically humming musical scales for now. I will see her again every couple of weeks to monitor the progress. I'll received my next dose of chemo on Monday.

I am Amazing

We went to the ENT specialist to figure out why I was loosing my voice again. If you recall my left vocal chord is paralyzed and that was the first symtom that eventually lead us to find out that I had lung cancer. In March 2008 I had a surgery where they put a prosthetic in my throat to compensate for the left vocal chord paralysis. It actually worked quite well and for the last 12 months my voice has been pretty good. The last couple of weeks my voice started going down hill again and we were concerned that the prothetic was failing or that I might be loosing function of the right vocal chord as well. Yesterday the ENT doctor put a scope down my throat to look around. He was suprised and amazed at what he saw. The left vocal chord is partially functioning again. He kept saying how AMAZING that was since he had never seen that happen in his 30 year career. The reason my voice is so hoarse is because the combination of the prosthetic and the partially functioning left side is closing the gap too much, and I am not getting the proper vibration of the chords in order to speak properly. If the the left chord comes back to full function we will remove the prosthetic. In the meantime we will leave it in and I am going take some speak therapy sesssions to help me adjust to the new situation (can you say ham-bur-ger), the doctor is confident that I will be able to improve my voice significantly through therapy. - Mr. Amazing

No puking allowed

Do you ever have one of those days when you wake up in the morning and you DON'T puke before breakfast? Sweet isn't it? I remember those days .....

Here we go again

Six months ago I started getting headaches and nausea. This was right after I had finished radiation therapy on my brain so the thinking was that these symptoms would go away by themselves in time. As much fun as the daily nausea has been, it has been wearing me down. I went in for a PET scan last week; the intent was to see if there was any cancer in my stomach, intestines, or other area that might be causing my nausea and headaches. They found nothing. But they did find that the cancer in my lungs and in my spine has grown. So Monday I will start chemotherapy again. The drug they are using will be different than last time; the doctor says that the side affects will not be as bad as I experienced the first time. My voice has started going down hill again, it was doing quite well until about two weeks ago, and now I am having a hard time speaking again. I am concerned that the device they put in my throat either is no longer working or there may be something wrong with my working vocal chord. I imagine I will be visiting my ENT doctor soon to get it checked out. -Eric

scan results

The doctor called today. The MRI and CT scans from yesterday both showed a slight shrinkage in the cancer. This is good news. Our next appointment is on Monday so we should be able to look at the pictures and ask more questions then. We're making progress. Take care. -Eric

Not much to report

I haven't posted in a while, not much to report. I still go in for maitenance drugs every three weeks. I still feeling somewhat crappy. Headaches, fatigue and naseau and the big issues I deal with everyday. We were hoping that these side affects would go away after awhile but they are still lingering. The doctor seems to think that these side affects are related to the disease itself and not the treatments. Still no hair growth. I go in for more scans in about 11 days, and we'll have more information then on the progress of the cancer. Take care. -Eric

hair news

So our most recent appointment with the doctor revealed some disturbing news. "Your hair may not ever grow back". Given the intense radiation exposure directly to the head it is not uncommon for the hair follicles to sustain significant damage such that it won't grow any more. They could have mentioned that before starting the treatments:) Well I haven't completely given up hope on the hair front, there are certainly worse things that could be happening. -Take care. -Eric