Anyone there?

Its been a long time since I updated this hasn't it...which is of course the idea...but I guess anniversaries are important...and I missed it again :D

So 4 years on...I need to book a checkup, I've been a bit lazy about that after missing my last one...no one chased it up and I couldn't really be bothered to hassle but I suppose prudence means I need to sort it.

So how am I?

Still not quite mastered the ancient art of yawning..though  I edge nanometres closer every time..and its stull hurts like hell.

I still have numbness in my neck which sometimes drives me a little mad, its also still tender at 1 or 2 spots under the numbness and I'm always aware of it, pain on scale of 1 -10 about a 1..so not really a problem...I probably need to get a massage again to drain whatever fluids are accumulated there...

My lip never fully recovered, but my speech was not badly affected and I learned to compensate but I do occasionaly fluff the odd song lyric. If my face is cold though it is totally useless and I do lisp then. I do occasionally still bite my lip if I am eating a burger or something but overall its good.
My tongue regained most of its movement and feeling over time, there's still a teeny bit of numbness but no danger of biting it and not noticing.

My radiation burnt beard never grew back, and I need to shave whats left every day or so to avoid strange looks of my half bearded face.

And that's about it...I seem to be in average health for an old fart of 50..a few aches and pains non cancer related.

The Anniversary of the surgery is coming up...I might book a dental appointment for a clean and polish just to remind myself of the pain :D

checkup fine, normal dental services to be resumed

The delayed checkup went fine, nothing to worry about, though we have decided to remove my redundant upper wisdom tooth next time I am in as it tends to make the jaw a little painful when the tendon rubs against it..its also a bugger to get clean as its a bit bent out of shape back there.. He offered to do it there and then, gulp...but I chickened out, a sore mouth was not my plan for this weekend, so I would rather wait till the next visit and psych myself up for it.

An Xray was taken just to see how everything is, all good, no sign of descending teeth, I guess the prothesis which I use from time to time, is keeping all the teeth in place.

Also as its now 3 years, give or take a week, we can reduce the visits to every 5 months now :) And I need to start going back to my normal dentist for routine torture, I mean cleaning and such.

In other news.

I was contacted recently by a campaigner in the US called Cameron von St. James who with his wife actively promotes awareness of mesothelioma, who wanted to post on my blog.. I thought carefully about that, but decided I wanted to maintain this blog as a simple personal experience of what I have been through to act as information to others.

I think it might muddy the waters if other topics were to be posted here, but in the land of the interwebs we should all try to help out and raise awareness so I agreed to post a link to his and his wife's blogs.
You can find them here.

http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/cameron/
http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/heather/

Damn I missed it.

Thats good isn't it?
I actually let April 6th pass by without a thought. 3 years since my diagnosis. Life moves on as it always does.
I still have check ups, though I accidentally missed my March one and re-scheduled for April 19th.
I still miss being able to yawn.
I still have nagging pain that comes and goes depending on when I last tried to yawn.
I still am terrified of sore throats and colds.

I'm still here.


 Overall....its good that I missed April the 6th..it wasn't really a very special day.

Nothing new

Had checkup on Friday, its now becoming so pointless Drs van Gemert barely remembers me...which is good.

Nothing at all to report, though the clinic has a new oral hygenist so time for more torture...next update in 5 months.....

Nothing to see here

Jan, (thats Dhrs Van Gemert to you) is not worried about the spot, I have  touch of gingivitus and its just a bit irritated...I can't use really strong mouthwashes, they burn like you would not believe, but I'll try a different brand and see if it helps...oh and I have to visit the trainee royal torturer...I mean Dental Hygenist...gahhh

If it gets bigger or hangs around when the gingivitus is under control then I can go back in, but he's not worried and did my normal check up while I was there, so next update might not be till December



hope so!!

oh dear

I've got a lump..

its tiny, and frankly can only feel it with my tongue. but its there...similar kind of "might be a spot", thing that I had when this all started.

Trouble is its not on the site of the orginal, its on the upper gum above the original.

As always with these things it probably is nothing more than a stubborn gum boil refusing to heal, but its about 3 weeks now...since I noticed it.

I've booked an appointment on Friday to get it checked... If it is nasty its going to be quick and easy to get rid of at an early stage..I'm not making the mistake of putting it off like I did before.

Under the circumstances, a little bit of over protective paranoia won't do me any harm.

I'll update as I know more.

Teething problems

There's not been a lot of things to post on here the last few months. But I know a few people are visiting so its only fair I make a effort to say a few things even if they seem very trivial to me they may mean something to others going though the recovery stage of oral cancer and jaw removal. Well...still no sign of a full jaw crackin yawn, I think I'm going to have to just deal with the fact thats not going to ever happpen again. The tendons in my right side were re-attached to my reduced jaw a little lower and therefore just can't stretch that far. When I get close to it, the full cracking point, I end up hurting the tendons resulting in some pain and swelling for a few days. As always I feel a bit like I have cotton wool in my mouth which is a little tender. My neck often feels a bit stiff and tight on the skin level, and I do have permenant sore spots there. I'm starting to talk a bit more like Slystallone too, out of the side of my mouth. Feeling has pretty much returned with a slight numbness on my right lower lip, but no control, the bottom right lip simple does not work so I can do a great "Don't push me " impression with realisitc lip paralysis. Its not a big problem though. I was given a prosthetic replacement for my gum/teeth area, but I didn't find it especially beneficial, it hurts when I chew on it (there's no gum on the bone) and it needs to be cleaned after eating (or removed before you start). So I've not really bothered with it a lot. Today though I decided to put it in for the 1st time in a couple of months and noticed immediatly that one of my top teeth as biting down on it. A sure sign that that took has started to grow down with no opposing tooth to prevent it. This really is the main cause of todays post, its a minor thing but something to be noted.. with no teeth under them the top teeth with slowly move down and eventually drop out...even though I don't chew that side any more I don't really want to lose the teeth so I'm going to make more effort to wear the prosthetic to prevent futher "droppage"