Neck and Head Cancer Survivor My Story

A number of people, especially my wife, have been wanting me to write about my experience with head and neck cancer and a long and interesting road it has been.  In 2005 a bump appeared on my left neck. Being a man I ignored it for awhile and then Barbara, my beautiful wife, finally convinced me to go see a doctor.

The doctor told me that they had been seeing a lot of that lately that was from the flu. I had flu symptoms right before the lump appeared. She said since it moved easily that she wasn't too concerned and that we should just keep an eye on it.

This was in March, 2005. Finally in late May we went to an Ear, Nose, Throat  doctor and he did a biopsy. A week later the results were inconclusive so we got to do the biopsy again which again turned up inconclusive. The doc scheduled surgery to see what was going on. The result was squamous cell carcinoma but the problem is that this type of cancer does not originate in the lymph gland. We needed to find where it was originating from. They next scheduled a P.E.T. scan. So they load me up with a type of sugar that has a radio isotope attached.

Cancer loves sugar. When they look at the pictures they can see where cancer uptakes the sugar and shows up as a hot spot from the radio isotopes. The hot spot turned out to be at the base of my tongue, inoperable because it is too close to the epiglottis.

The next step was to see the oncologist who took my case before the board and they came back with a recommendation to do surgery on neck to make sure they got it all and chemo and radiation. Of course at this time Barbara and I were in shock every since the diagnosis.

It's funny how sometimes life prepares you for things that will come along later in life whether good or not so good. I started reading about alternative medicine and health in general years ago. So I was predisposed to want to go that route especially when I heard the possible side effects of the treatments. Radiation and chemo play havoc with our bodies. The ones that scared me right away were the immediate pain from mouth sores and burns, nausea, fatigue and etc. The long term effects of not being able to swallow, even water, so being on a feeding tube, damage to tongue and maybe not being able to speak, loss of teeth and even the whole jaw. Yes, big baby that I am, these scared the hoot out of me.

I opted to go the "natural" route. I, at first, worked with a nurse who was in natural medicine and started a liver and kidney cleanse. By the time that was over I was clean. I had also lost a bunch of weight and was feeling pretty weak.

All this time, of course, I was studying about options on the internet. There are so many whacks and cracks out there that it's scary. Several people I came across at this time recommended a naturopathic doctor locally who has helped lots of people. My experience with naturopaths in the past had not been favorable but my first impression with this one was remarkable. They were not into labeling but in finding out what the body is doing and addressing those issues so that the body can heal itself.

I will not name the doctor I worked with or the credentials because in our country the medical industry and government, in the eyes of some, to protect the public and in the view of others as the controlling everything to their profit have attacked and shut down both good and bad practitioners.
Later, I'll get into more of the ins and outs of alternative therapies.