Good News & Not Quite So Good News...

So a bunch of things happened today that I want to update everyone on.

First everyone is real impressed with how fast I'm recovering (I'm apparently a prodigy at recovering from trauma).
My tongue is still fairly swollen, but I'm talking surprisingly well (though I have to talk slowly).

They removed my tracheostomy tube today, so I have a cool hole in my neck covered by a heavy duty bandaid & tape.
Thursday they test my swallowing ability (I'm expecting a slew of BJ bits from everyone between now & then) & if all goes according to plan, they'll take my feeding tube out and I can start drinking & eating soft foods.

I finally got my pathology report back. Absolutely zero trace of cancer in the lymph nodes (which is awesome).

Unfortunately there was some slight perineural involvement... What that means is that cancer cells in the tumor had penetrated some nerves in the sample.
This means there is a good chance there might be microscopic traces of cancer cells scattered in random nerves still in my tongue.
Which gives me about an 85% chance of recurrence down the line.

So I'm going to need radiation therapy. The bad news about this is it lengthens my recovery time, the good news is after this treatment I should be golden.

The basic details of my treatment now are this:

In 2-3 weeks (when I would've been heading back to Chicago) they will start radiation treatment. The process will take approximately two months.
After that it will take roughly 2-3 more months to recover from the effects (I assume super powers / cool mutations) of the radiation on me & then I'll be as cancer-free as you can get.

During the treatment I'll be in Texas & then the last couple months of recovery will be spent at home in KY.

So bottom line you'll have to wait a little bit longer for my triumphant return & cancel the celebrations till around August (which happens to be my birthday, which is very fortuitous).