Well, one thing we really weren't worried about - happened. Jami , who exercises and is a healthnut that maniacally eats 5 fruits and veggies a day, was diagnosed with cancer on January 14th, 2021.
After 4 months of trying to figure out what was wrong with her throat and ear, we came to a terrifying conclusion, I am beginning with the diagnosis: Jami has stage 2 Tonsil Cancer (a squamous cell carcinoma). I have been asked by many for updates, and have had some suggestions to start a Caring Bridge to keep everyone in the loop. So, on behalf of our entire family, we sincerely appreciate the outpouring of thoughts and prayers from everyone. I'll do my best to use this site to keep everyone up to date.
After a series of doctor visits and tests and rounds of antibiotics, Jami saw Dr. Raymond Brown, an ENT in December. He scoped her throat, and ordered a CT scan and a biopsy, which showed growth and a squamous cell carcinoma on her right tonsil and right lymph nodes. We met with Dr. Michael Herman and Dr. Darren Kocs at Texas Oncology on January 15th, 2021, and they laid out a treatment plan whose relevance relied upon a clean PET scan to ensure that it had not traveled throughout the body. That same day Jami had another CT scan, blood work, and her radiation mask made. On January 18th the results of the PET scan showed that that the cancer was only in the right tonsil and two (maybe three) lymph nodes, but all in the same vicinity so overall good news that the cancer has not metastasized. Today, January 19th, Jami had a port placed and another biopsy of the lymph node to identify if the cancer originated from HPV. We are hoping for it to be HPV-related since that type of cancer is responsive to treatment and has a very good survival rate of 90%.
Starting Monday, January 25th Jami will begin radiation and chemotherapy (regardless of the HPV results). She will undergo radiation every day (10 minutes/day) for 7 weeks and will also have chemotherapy once a week to augment the radiation. So, with only 7 chemo treatments and 35 radiation treatments she will kick cancer's ass!
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