On February 24th 2020 Halina and I met with her Otolaryngologist Dr. Hearn and he explained that Halina was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called “Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma” which was located on the base of her tongue. Looking over the CT scans and using a small probe to enter through her nose he was able to determine just how big the cancer was and that the mass was too far back on the tongue to salvage any of it.
Dr. Hearn knew this was not an easy discussion but did not sugarcoat the realization of the situation. The first thing he told us was that Chemotherapy and Radiation had little to no effect on this particular type of cancer so he basically gave Halina two options, 1) have an operation to totally remove the tongue and any outlying areas to get rid of the cancer or 2) don’t do anything and take the chance that the tumor would burst resulting in Halina suffocating from the mass of blood or taking the chance that the cancer would spread to the lungs or brain at which point he said this would be a palliative care situation.
The procedure to remove the tongue was considered a major operation. To remove everything that needed to come out involved making an incision down through the bottom lip, down the neck and along both sides of the neck to approximately the ears, then splitting the jaw in order to spread everything open enough to do the surgery. We were told this was about an eight hour operation so they needed to book the OR for the full day.
At this point I was totally numb and honestly felt my blood run cold, Halina was devastated but remarkably was handling the news much better than I thought she would. Dr. Hearn told us to go home and think about it but just by looking at Halina I think I knew what her choice was.
What followed was many days of soul searching and for me anyway the decision for her to have the surgery kept switching from “yes” to “no” constantly. I know this may sound like an easy decision but for me the thought of the operation and what was going to be done with her I just couldn’t get my head around it.
When you get news like this it makes you start thinking about how much time you have left on this earth, a conversation I didn’t think we would have for many years to come so suffice to say I was not prepared for it, heck we didn’t even have wills made out yet. So it goes without saying that this was the first thing I wanted to do before Halina got any worse. By this time she was in so much pain that the Dr. Prescribed morphine which made her very tired but still in discomfort.
What lingered in our heads was that once the surgery was over we would not be able to carry out a normal conversation with each other, this idea was devistating and so when Halina was feeling up to it we would talk about things as much as possible. One of the things Halina wanted to do was to have food that she knew she would miss. There is this awesome Vietnamese restaurant called the Lemongrass, we went there everytime I was home from work and couldn’t get enough of it. Steak and mashed potatoes was one meal she had to have so we bought a few expensive cuts of meat, slapped it on the BBQ and enjoyed a nice family dinner. There were many more items Halina wanted to try but unfortunately by this time swallowing had become an issue and with taking the pills she spent a lot of time in bed.
Halina made up her mind and decided that having the operation and the chance to live a longer life, one where she could be around to see and meet her grandchildren, was the best decision so she called the surgeon and a date of April 1st was scheduled.