Follow-up appointment with my ENT

Quickie update before having my lower teeth pulled on Wednesday morning:

Saw Dr. Lehr, and he snipped out the remaining two stitches on my tongue. Poked around in my mouth and poked around on my neck and we made an appointment for late February to follow-up. Looks like we're to the once a month visit stage.

I told him about having to reschedule the teeth extraction which meant that the radiation treatments would probably be delayed a week. He was very happy with my healing progress, but mentioned again that he just felt radiation was something that needed to be done. Since Randall and I both agree with him, I think he was just sort of tossing that out there for good measure. We all agree that the best thing to do is treat this aggressively the first time in the hopes it won't return later. You never know, but this is the time to give our best effort even if we have to address it again sometime down the road.

He also cleaned out my ears again. There wasn't as much wax as before, but Randall said there was still more than he would have expected considering he did this in late November. I came home with two nasal spray samples, too, hoping that one of them will address the awful allergies and dizziness that I have now. I told Dr. Lehr that this has been going on for a couple of years, but has gotten progressively worse as I've lived here and that I'd never had it before moving back from Dallas.

Randall went in to the Fentress Cancer Center when we left Lehr's office (they're right down the parking lot from where we were today). There was a new receptionist there, but Randall said she took notes about everything to talk to Dr. Mundy about, and he also said that she mentioned that the dollar figure we'd been quoted by the chemo doctor's office sounded "funny." So I suspect that when Dr. Mundy hears, he'll speak with the doctor over there. We have until February 1 before our appointment, but Randall did tell Mundy's office that if the chemo doctor couldn't work with us, we wouldn't be able to keep the 2/1 date. I suspect if we've not heard anything by next Tuesday, we'll call because we're getting ready to bump into the drop dead date.

So that's where we are. Overall, I think things are going very well. Certainly no new issues cropping up and that's a good thing. I'm to exercise my tongue now because the area is healing and it's beginning to pull. It just needs to be worked and stretched like most scar tissue does so it will become flexible.

I suspect Randall will post a quick update on Wednesday after my teeth are yanked. I have no idea what shape I'll be in, so I wouldn't expect to see me posting here for a day or two.