karenulijohn

Back in April of this year, Harvey had a small bump on the side of his nose that he kept picking. I told him to stop and when he did, that small bump grew and grew. When he finally managed to get an appointment with his dermatologist, the dermatologist removed the offending bump and said it was probably a granuloma. Unfortunately, when the pathology report came back, it turned out to be a stage 3 melanoma. He was referred to a wonderful surgeon, Jay Owens, whom we finally saw ten days after the report. He examined Harvey and immediately found a swollen lymph node in his neck on the same side as the bump. At this point, Harvey just wanted to get the “thing” removed, and the quicker the better. He was very disappointed that he had to wait until several other tests were performed. The first was a needle biopsy on the lymph nodes in his neck. They came back negative, so surgery was scheduled for Friday, May 15th at 1:50PM. We had to be at the hospital at 9:00AM for a Sentinel Node Injection to determine to which lymph node the offending bump was likely to drain. That was a painful test.

I should say that this was Harvey’s first time ever in a hospital. Actually, he has been very lucky in his life not to have had any serious illnesses. He does not take any medication. When we finally got him registered in the hospital and into one of the ‘Ralph Lauren’ style hospital gowns, we waited! And waited, and waited, and waited. At 5:30PM they finally wheeled him to the OR. Mind you, he had not had anything to eat or drink since 10:00PM the night before. He was surprisingly patient and good natured. Thank goodness he wasn’t “shopping.”

The surgery lasted about 3 hours and Dr. Owens came out to tell me that everything went quite well. The “bump” was quite deep and he had to take some of Harvey’s cheek and form it into part of the nose. He did such a wonderful job, and while you can notice something different, it isn’t bad. After a little skirmish with one of the nurses about pain pills, I finally got him home around 11:15PM. He went straight to sleep and did not awaken until about 6:00AM. He had another pain pill, and was out for most of the day. He did not take anymore pain pills.

On Sunday, when I was out for my walk, someone came to the door to say that one of our sprinkler heads on the side of the house was spewing water. I got home in time to see Harvey gleefully changing into his work clothes to go out and fix the pipe. He could not wait to get out there and do something useful. I didn’t have the heart to suggest that maybe it was a little soon to be working in the yard!

He was referred to a radiologist and a hematologist. One of them ordered a PET scan. The PET scan showed one lymph node shining like a star. Dr. Owens said that it needed to come out. So, a second surgery was scheduled on June 15th. Unfortunately, this lymph node was the one he had felt during our first visit, and it was indeed cancerous. This turned out to be something of a game changer since the cancer had metastasized to one lymph node. Harvey began radiation treatments on July 12th. He didn’t notice any change until the evening when he saw that his face and neck were swollen on the left side. We phoned the radiologist and he said that it was probably the parotid gland (one of the salivary glands) and that this happens in about 1 in 20 people. There is no known reason, but that it should not happen again. We’ll see.

Today was Harvey’s second radiation treatment. I did not go with him for this visit. He decided that he could go it alone. I made sure that he had his list of questions and that he gave me a full and detailed report upon his return. He said they did the same amount of measuring and adjusting and that, by his mental count, each of the two sites got about 45 seconds of radiation. After he spoke with the Doctor about sunscreen vs wide brimmed hats, he went to Starbucks for a hot chocolate and the USA Today. On the way home he stopped at CVS for a “box” of White Zin. I’m happy to say that it truly seems that he is not going to let this change him!!