Brian’s Health Journey
Posted on December 4, 2024 by Ching under Health.
Where to begin? I guess let’s start from the very beginning. Earlier this year Brian was having some dental issues. These issues were partly because of poor dental hygiene and taking things for granted. After at least three root canals, the endodontist decided Brian needed to see an oral surgeon to get a cyst removed from the front of his mouth. He originally had oral surgery scheduled shortly after our Colorado trip but the week that he was to have surgery he was suffering sore throat due to some kind of tonsil infection.
Brian’s oral surgeon, Dr. Christopher Harris, determined that the oral surgery should be postponed until Brian had his throat and tonsil issues looked at. The concern was that if they were to proceed with surgery the infection from the tonsil could infect the surgery area. So then Brian went to see Dr. Aaron Thiessen, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, about his issues. Brian ended up taking antibiotics which didn’t really do much so he and Dr. Thiessen agreed that the best course of action would be to simply remove his tonsils. Brian’s tonsillectomy was then scheduled for Thursday, October 3. However, the doctor noticed that Brian’s lymph node was swollen so, as a precautionary measure, he also scheduled a lymph node biopsy on September 30. This was the Monday before the tonsil surgery.
Brian’s lymph node biopsy revealed cancer. The ENT doc theorized that the cancer in Brian’s lymph node probably came from his infected tonsil but needed to confirm this. Instead of doing a tonsillectomy that following Thursday, Dr. Thiessen changed the procedure to a laryngoscopy and tonsil biopsy.
The biggest reason for not moving forward with the tonsillectomy being that, if the cancer needed to be treated, the doctor did not want treatment to be delayed by the post-tonsillectomy recovery. At the point, the greater priority would be to treat the cancer as quickly as possible.
Here are some pics of Brian I took during surgery day — actually it was laryngoscopy and tonsil biopsy day.
The following week it was confirmed that Brian did in fact have cancer in his tonsil which has spread to his lymph node. The next step was to complete a PET scan to find if the cancer had spread to other parts of his body. In the meantime, there was the matter of the cyst in his mouth that still needed to be removed. There was a delay in PET scans and he couldn’t get an appointment until October 24 and he couldn’t start any cancer treatments until the PET scan was done so we figured that he would have enough time to go through the oral surgery and recover from it before cancer treatments would begin. Otherwise, then he would have to wait until sometime the following year to do oral surgery because it wouldn’t be idea to do it in the middle of cancer treatments. It basically had to be done now or it would have to wait until the following year.
We chose the NOW option and, thankfully, one of our friends just happens to be the godmother of Brian’s oral surgeon. She pulled some strings and they were able to get him in right away. Speaking of which, what we thought was a cyst was actually not a cyst. It turned out to be a massive dental infection that had gotten so bad that it started to form a cyst-like substance in Brian’s mouth.
Because of Brian’s cancer diagnosis, we thought he would be in the middle cancer treatments (radiation and chemo) during the Mexico trip so we ended up canceling his flight (more on this later). However, due to delays with insurance approvals, Brian’s cancer treatments actually didn’t begin until a couple of week ago — after I got back from Mexico — so he totally could have gone on the trip.
Brian’s treatment consists of 35 days of daily (Monday through Friday) radiation treatments spread over 8 weeks and weekly chemotherapy over 6 weeks. Radiation would only have been 7 weeks but due to skipping treatments on the holidays — Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s Day — it comes out to 8 weeks total. His last radiation treatment is on January 9 and his last chemo treatment is on January 2.
I went with Brian to his first radiation appointment and got this video:
So far, to date, Brian has completed two chemo treatments (just four left to go) and is two and a half weeks into radiation. He is doing well so far but the radiation is definitely starting to take a toll. We have been posting updates on our Flip + Ching Facebook page so feel free to follow us there if you want to keep up with his progess.
In the meantime, we are super grateful for everyone’s support and prayers. Brian is lucky to have such wonderful people who care about him wishing him well and praying for his recovery. Thank you all!
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