Pathology Results

Pathology has been back for a while now, but we still haven't wrapped our heads around the results.  The pathology sample came back as being more mature rhabdomyosarcoma than what was initially found in John's neck biopsy.  Because it is mature, the doctors agree it responded to treatment somehow.  It's not common for them with this cancer to do a post-treatment biopsy, so they aren't sure what to think.  Unless a new tumor pops up they are not planning to prescribe more chemo.  The doctors on the tumor board did meet and discuss John's case last week.  They agreed that John should go have resection surgery in his nose and try to get clean margins.  My best understanding of that phrase is that they are going to keep taking tissue out of the same area of the primary tumor until they get tissue samples that do not have any rhabdo in them.  It should be a pretty easy surgery with a quick recovery.  The surgery has not been scheduled yet. 

John has been working full-time since the end of June and only took off a few days for his last surgery.  He is doing well.  He is getting back some strength and energy.  He installed can lights in our living room on his own last week.  The heat still wears him out pretty quick, but early in the summer a few hours in the sun would put him in bed for two days.  This week he went golfing one day and the next day was ready for a bike ride. 

Haircut

Sept 9 was John's first haircut after ending chemo back in May.  He still has a bald spot on the back of his head, but the rest of his hair was getting crazy as it grew.  One of our friends guessed it was because his hair was growing back curly.  He couldn't ever fix it, so he finally cut it last night.  For a while it grew as a mow-hawk, but as it got a little bit longer it was just all crazy.

Post Surgery Check-up

We found out why they straightened John's nose and what that meant.  He had a deviated septum which made it hard for the doctors to do the surgery.  The side of his nose that they were doing the surgery on was the small side. So after working around it for a little bit, the doctor decided he could do a better job at the surgery if he fixed John's septum.  So they moved bone and tissue, maybe cartilage (I can't remember), then stapled it all back together.  So John has several staples along both sides of his septum that will dissolve on their own. No wonder his nose felt broken!

Inside John's nose was still pretty swollen and irritated from the surgery so he hadn't drained very much.  So the doctor used a vacuum to clean everything out.  John is on strict orders to do a nose rinse 3 times (or more) per day, plus Nasonex.  No blowing his nose yet for another week.  The doctor hopes this cleaning from yesterday will help everything heal better. 

No pathology results yet on the tissue they removed from the surgery.  Also, yesterday the doctor said that he did find the tumor, it was just super small compared to what they were guessing. It was just a tiny bump so they did remove the whole thing.