Grey Matter

Surgery was 12 days ago and at last, an hour ago or so, the doctor reported in with the results of the pathologist. Still inconclusive. As we said in Hong Kong: ay-ya.

Maybe this will always be inconclusive, maybe there are no definite answers. We do know, more or less, that all the lymph node cancer in my neck is gone. We also think that all the suspect tissue in my mouth is gone. But what is still "grey" - my surgeon's term - is whether a radiation oncologist would recommend radiation of the neck. There is some more testing of the tissue that was taken originally that might shed further light, and they are going to proceed with this.

But it's pretty clear at this point that the answer will not be clear. So we are left with me, who has no desire to undergo radiation unless it's necessary, and my surgeon, who doesn't like it either. He likes what he calls Careful Watching (let's call that "CW"). I sure like CW too, as opposed to going in every morning for months and having some tech zap my head and neck with X-rays, and making food taste so crappy that they offer to feed you through a "peg" in your stomach.

To me the obvious question is why, if we are not sure there is anything left to worry about, do the radiation at all? If CW fails somehow, can there suddenly erupt a serious cancer that radiation would have stopped? The surgeon says he's never seen it. What's more, he says, radiation can impair CW; it can make it harder to detect the kinds of changes in cells that CW is looking for. And radiation has its own downsides - not just short-term effects - including, at the end of the spectrum, carcinogenic downsides.

But he's a cutter, not a radiation guy, and he's has a bias. He really hates the blunderbuss approach to treatment. I am struggling for an analogy - something like killing back the whole lawn in order to be sure you get the spots of crabgrass.

So back again to waiting, but I've learned to stop expecting some kind of clear denouement. It will be a judgment call based on shades of grey.

In the meantime, 12 days on, I'm up and at 'em. The only real lingering problems are a sore neck and throat and a mouth that still feels like I went to a sadistic dentist. Still numb, and food is not right. Some things taste great, like milkshakes, hence:



which my buddy Steve took at the Steak 'N Shake last week. Many other things I usually love, however, just will not go down. A great friend and cook served me a gorgeous Sockeye Salmon the other night, and I knew in my head that normally I would wolf it. Instead I pushed it around the plate like a girlyman.

The palate will come back, sooner or later. In the meantime I will not let this crisis go unexploited - and will regain the Hong Kong silhouette. Ay-ya!



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