a bit more surgery.

Dear friends & family riding with us... thanks for your love and support. We are feeling it!

We head to St. Louis on Tuesday afternoon for our surgery on Wednesday, August 10th at 10am. I can tell that Mike is a little blue about it, but he is still the strongest, cheeriest cancer fighter I know.

This is not a recurrence of the disease but likely a microscopic bit of disease left from the neck dissection. We know that the cancer was removed completely from the throat area with the last surgery, but the lymph nodes are trickier. The previous surgery was two part: removal of cancer mass in tonsil area and neck dissection for cancer cells that had migrated to the lymph nodes. Mike had cancer cells in 4 of the 33 lymph nodes removed. We will know more when Dr. Haughey gets back in there but he will for sure be removing the enlarged node and possibly some surrounding ones.

We will also meet with the radiologist that works with Dr. Haughey after the surgery on Thursday. After the pathology reports are back they will make a recommendation for a radiation treatment to Mike's left neck only to mop up any disease that might be left. We will post more when we know more.

We continue to be thankful that we can limit the dosage and placement of the radiation because of the surgical options we have had. When you have spent time at Head & Neck Cancer clinics you know first hand how disfiguring and debilitating head & neck radiation can be... We heard of a man this week who had throat cancer and hasn't eaten for 12 years. (The radiation destroyed his ability to do so.) ...And on our first visit to UNMC we met a wonderful fellow and after talking a bit Mike asked about his "accident". We guessed that he had taken a grenade to the face serving in Afghanistan. Actually what we saw were the effects of radiation from sinus cancer. It is uncomfortable to tell the morbid stories but it is the realities that come with head & neck cancer & radiation. We are thankful for the minimal amount of radiation we will need because of our surgical path.

Mike has been on the prayer list at our church this whole time and two weeks ago a good friend said in good nature "Why are we still praying for you - you look great." Steve was one of the first people we called when we got out of Dr. H's office last week. Thanks to all of you for hanging in there with your love and your prayers!