The verdict is in

The day of reckoning was today.

My sister and I went to the ENT clinic today (at 3:15, thereby guaranteeing we’d be stuck in some traffic on the way back home). After a half-hour wait we got in to see Drs. Sniezek and Kolb, who were the surgeons who did the cutting last week.

Dr. Sniezek told me immediately that they’d gotten everything. He said he still wants to see a PET/CT scan to ensure no cancer has spread beyond my mouth, but that the section they cut out (the remainder of the uvula plus a part of the soft palate above it) had been to the lab and showed no cancer cells on any of its margins, left, right, front or back. That means they caught it very very early before it could spread beyond the uvula itself. The tumor was about 4mm; a dime is 17mm.

They’re scheduling the scans very soon. In the meantime the ENT folks want me back in a month and after that every couple of months for a year or so just to be sure nothing new appears.

We’re pretty much over the moon out here. I dodged a very big bullet, and I know it.

19 Comments

  1. That’s tremendous news, Steve. So glad to hear it, and wishing you the best of health moving forward. Salud!

  2. I am so very happy for you Steve. My wife Kara is glad to hear the news as well. Congratulations!

  3. That’s wonderful, Steve. You must be feeling incredible relief! Hooray for modern medicine! Hooray for you!

  4. We feel so much lighter hearing this good news that we cannot IMAGINE how elated you are. Thank you so much for the prompt update.

  5. Whew. Good to hear – I suddenly had a moment of “hey I haven’t heard from Linkmeister on G+ in a while” – so again, whew.

    Also, wow, 4mm – and again I’m all amazed over the science of medicine.

  6. This came down while I was on vacation with really iffy email connectivity, so this is the first chance I’ve had to say how very glad I am to hear this news! (And yeah, stay off the coffin nails.)

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