Always a smile.  The goal was to remove the tumor from the roof of her mouth without punching a hole through and into her nasal passage.  Success with the Tumor, failure with the hole. A nasty quarter size mess of tissue opened up from the roof of her mouth.  Recovery was going to be complicated.

She has a fucking quarter size hole in the top of her mouth with a jaw that was clearly dislocated during surgery.  How the hell is she going to swallow pills.  Two years later she still struggles with this even though the hole has closed to the size of a pencil eraser.

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We live 2 hours from the Cancer center and she is about to begin 6 weeks of treatment, 5 days a week.  The winter from hell makes it impossible for us to make the commute so we choose to move into a hotel 4 days a week, returning home only on the weekends.  The kindness of our friends makes this possible as 5 dogs try to figure out where we have gone.

There warmth, smiles, caring and understanding do more to make the process bearable than anything.  E chooses to blast the radiation room with music each and every day in order to get by.

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The location of the cancerous area requires her to have a molded mask created and be bolted in for each and every treatment.  A large tongue depressor is molded to help protect that part of her mouth from stray rays.  I was not prepared for this…

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Our dogs stayed at home, all 5 of them, but a kind staff person gave E a stuffed animal that would stay with her for each and every treatment.  Always a smile on her face.

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Kicking Cancer in the ASS

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The dog, her music, and a scent ball make each and every treatment more comfortable.  Chocolates don’t hurt either.

A marvel of technology.  An X-ray is taken daily and then used to match up with the beam pattern, insuring that everything is lined up as it should be.

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