Jan 13th, 2009

As I write this Peg and I are in Punta Gorda Florida drinking up the sun and trying to put all of this in perspective.

How did all this start ??? I was driving home from a gig in October, when I scratched my neck and noticed an enlarged lymph node on the upper right hand side of my neck. After a visit to my good friend and Adirondack GP Tony Waickman, I was told to keep an eye on it and if it did not go down in about two weeks I should have it looked at. At the recommendation of our GP at home I met with Dr.Almehari in Newark, NY on Nov. 24 and he seemed concerned, so on the same day a CT was done of my neck. The next morning around 7:15 am. his office called and told me they suspected I had either a lymphoma or squamous cell carcinoma and strongly suggested that I come in the next morning to have surgery to remove and biopsy the lymph node. (The sensitivity of some surgeons leaves a lot to be desired !!) Because of the Thanksgiving holiday and our busy holiday performance schedule we settled on Dec. 17th to have the surgery, in turn I agreed to have 4 more CT scans (head, chest, abdomen and pelvis) done on the day after Thanksgiving, Nov 28th. All of those CT scans were clear. The surgery went well and after a week on the couch and lots of Vicodin, Peg and I performed on Christmas Eve at our Unitarian Church in Syracuse. On Dec 29th we met with our surgeon and found out that the biopsy was positive for stage 3 metastatic squamous cell cancer and the lymph node was only the secondary location. The meeting was surreal almost seemed like we would soon awake from a bad dream. No compassion or sensitivity from the doctor, just a matter of fact, you have stage 3 cancer and we’ll find you an oncologist. Good luck. In my conversations with many of you who have had cancer it seems like the surgeons tend to be the least sensitive and not so great with the bedside manner!!

The next day, Dec 30th we met with our new oncologist Dr. Bruce Yirinec at the Clifton Springs Cancer clinic near Geneva, NY. He spent over an hour and a half with us and he is truly wonderful. He made it clear that this will not be an easy road, but with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy we have a decent chance of knocking this out. But the first order of business is finding the original site of the cancer, most likely somewhere in the right side of my head, sinuses, throat etc. As scared and confused as we feel about this both Peggy and I have great confidence with Dr. Yirinec and feel that he has the knowledge and compassion to lead us thru this maze!

With the good doctor’s blessing on Jan 4th Peg and I flew down to Punta Gorda Florida for a two week trip that was originally set up for us to take Peg’s parents. The morning we were all to leave, Charlie { Peg’s Dad } had an episode with a bad hernia and was taken to Auburn hospital where two days later surgery was done for the third time in three years on his hernia. Knowing he was in good hands and having music gigs in Florida we came down ourselves. Sometimes things work out in strange ways!!

We fly home on Jan. 18th and on Jan.19th I meet with an ear, nose and throat specialist who will do an examination of my nasal cavities. Later in the hospital, under general anesthesia, there will be an endoscope exam of my throat passages and bronchial area and lungs. All of this in hope that they can find the primary cancer site. If a site is found, hopefully surgery can be done to remove the cancer and then there will be a five to six week regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. If the primary site is not found then we do the radiation and chemotherapy.

Right now the hardest thing seems to be the uncertainty, not knowing where this thing is and how much it has spread. In the quiet moments I pray for strength and most of all for patience. The music seems to have taken on a greater depth and performances with Peg and the Susquehanna String Band during the last few weeks have given me a great lift. A few more days in Florida then we are on our way home to jump into the fire. I have been so thankful for this quiet time in lovely weather to start to deal with all of this. I’ll try to keep this blog up to date as we proceed, so please stop back often and let me know your thoughts. Thanks again for the all the wonderful thoughts, concerns, and prayers. They lift me up and let me know that I am not fighting this thing alone.