Third Day Home Post Surgery (Glossectomy)

Originally posted June 2, 2017

Third day home post surgery…

Awe. Our baby is growing up so fast… he’s already feeding himself!

(It was totally his idea to pose for this pic and have me call him baby. Ha ha)

Tony told me that he had the best sleep he has had since surgery. He was still up almost every hour, but when he slept he was dreaming. 😴

The home health nurse called to check on us and decided she didn’t need to make a home visit today.

Yesterday Tony showed me something I wasn’t aware of. There are sutures wrapped around his bottom front teeth, holding the floor of his mouth up while it heals. I’ve been a rock with everything they had to do to him, but for some reason, that bit of information just sickened me.

To keep his mouth clean, Tony rinses several times a day with salt water. He said that he tipped his head back today and gargled a little without aspirating. He is anxious to pass the swallow test. One of the things he misses most is drinking water. (Which they tell us can be the hardest thing to swallow.) He has been craving pizza 🍕 and he isn’t even a big pizza fan. We feel so badly eating in front of him, but he finds pleasure in inhaling deeply the aroma of foods.

Interestingly enough, he can still taste. We know because when he burps there is flavor there. 😜 Turns out, there are a lot of taste buds in the mouth, not just on the tongue.

We received word that the tumor board met about Tony’s case again today. The pathology is back and they are recommending chemotherapy in addition to radiation. 😥 We have a follow-up appointment with the reconstructive surgeon on Monday and he will go over the pathology and treatment recommendation with us.

The radiation will be provided by the Huntsman Cancer Institute and chemotherapy will be done at the VA Hospital. They are working on setting up the orientation appointments for when we will be down there for another surgery follow up in a week or two. We anticipate five weeks of treatment. Radiation treatments will be Monday through Friday. The actual radiation treatments take 15 or 20 minutes a day. Chemo is a four-hour session one day per week. Driving 6 hours round trip every weekday is just too hard, so we will be spending a lot of our summer in Salt Lake City.