perspective giver.

Within our little county here in Nebraska, there is another man named Mike who was also diagnosed with head & neck cancer this year. We do not know him well and have heard about his story through friends... but his story is very different than ours.

The Other Mike's doctor recommended Radiation and Chemotherapy for his treatment and he said yes. They started by pulling all of his teeth. (Remember? Any teeth that are in poor health are pulled before radiation treatment because after radiating your mouth, the area would not heal if a tooth had to be extracted later because your overall dental health is impaired.) At the end of his radiation treatments and in the midst of his chemo treatments we heard that he had lost 75 pounds and they were threatening a feeding tube within days if he could not start some weight gain. (You still have the swallowing issues with radiation, but add to that no teeth and I would say that would be a pretty serious challenge to make mealtimes enjoyable.)

Now we also heard that the other Mike was not in as good of physical condition at his diagnosis as our Mike. There are many factors that come into play. But when we heard about Other Mike's story, we were reminded how thankful we are that God guided us to research that showed that there are other options besides radiation. We want to fall to our knees in thankfulness again at being guided to Dr. Bruce Haughey at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis. Though cancer is a tough ride, we have so much to be thankful for.