The Marvelous Mrs. Merkel

What strange times we live in at the moment.  I (We) hope everyone is staying as healthy as possible, washing hands, disinfecting the world at the moment. Also, side note, the faster everyone adheres to some social distancing (just stay home, kids), the faster this will all be over.  That being said, 26 sessions of radiation have come and gone. Mom finished the last session on Monday! Radiation and a pandemic at the same time -- talk about multitasking. Above is the picture after she rang the bell and received her certificate. She's also holding her radiation mask. She get's to keep it. Maybe we'll turn it into a cool planter or something. We had to Facetime the bell-ringing. I had the kids with me (because school had closed) and we were not allowed into the facility (not even the waiting room -- which is very understandable and very good practice). But in addition to being awesome nurses, techs, aids, and doctors, they took pictures for us.  Radiation s...

Hello all-- Just wanted to give an update. I know that Mom updated her facebook page but not everyone who reads this can see that. Overall, things have been quiet and she has been recovering and resting. They took the stitches out about a week after the surgery and she has been slowly working on removing the wonky sideburn that is now at a 90 degree angle from its original position. She has been out to Bingo twice (a usual weekly event) and out shopping a few times, but small bouts of activity make her pretty tired. No training for marathons yet...maybe in a few months. The good news (which she had already posted) was that her margins from the surgery were clear. Actually, they were very clear. That means in addition to the tumor being removed previously, she had an additional 2 cm in every direction removed and that tissue was clear of any cancer. To put the size of those margins in perspective, a lot of cancers require only 1-2 mm of clear margins to be removed (millimeters [mm] ...

Happy New Year!          Just a brief update, as the queen herself will update tomorrow after receiving the pathology report (i.e. how big the tumor really was and if they cleared the margins) during her first follow-up appointment. Mom has been resting comfortably at home since Sunday. An ice pack worked wonders on her eye--thanks Cheryl! The swelling and the pain are gradually getting better each day.            In my opinion the scar will look great once the stitches are out and the swelling has gone down. Still a bit of tugging on her eye and the area around her ear is pretty sensitive (where the "skin flap" originated). But other than that, everything is slowly getting better.            We hope everyone is having (or had) a good holiday. 

          Sorry for the radio silence--my computer wouldn't charge yesterday in these hospital outlets, but it looks good now.            The past day has been pretty low key. Mom has been eating most of her meals (unless it looks gross). We took a few walks around the floor and down to "the healing lounge," which is the large family waiting area that has a lot of plants and trees. Also a lot of TV watching, although that has been hard given she doesn't have her glasses on. I think we will break the side off of an old pair of glasses when we get home.            In terms of the surgical site, it's healing nicely. I don't think I accurately described it in the previous post, but she does indeed have a "skin flap." It's just from the side of her face rather than her arm. But it's nice and pink. There are about 60-70 stitches (Dad stopped counting at 70 stitches) so the scar should look pretty good. On...

          Quick update -- because we just got an update from her doctor. At about 1:30 the information desk found us and they said they were closing her up. Dad and I stared at each other and said "ummmmm....no?" We figured that they meant the lead surgeon was starting the reconstruction and graft.            But...they went in, and everything actually looked pretty clean. They took 2cm in every direction from the tumor site. After inspecting the site for where it could have possibly drained, it actually looked like it didn't really drain anywhere. Because of this, there didn't seem to be a reason to take any lymph nodes (and there weren't any sentinel lymph nodes identified in the test earlier).            And because everything looked pretty clean, that was all the tissue they took: no skin flap and no skin graft. She will have a wave-like scar on her face (they pulled skin from her ear over), but...

Good morning,           It's been a very early day for all of us and everyone is running on very little sleep.            We arrived at the hospital at 5am and checked in to pre-OP. Over the course of the morning we met with all of the nurses and doctors who would be in the OR (at least most of them). She also spent 2 hours doing the sentinel lymph node testing. The point of this test is to follow injected radioactive dye and see what lymph node lights up first. But after waiting for 2 hours none of them lit up. Her doctor said this isn't unusual when you have already had a procedure done in the area, and he is going to go ahead and remove part (or all) of the parotid gland and see if there are any cancer cells there, as he suspects that's where it would have moved to if it has spread. The parotid gland is one of the salivary glands we have in our head and neck ( You can click here to see where the gland is. It goes to a wikiped...