HPV-16 Induced Tonsil Cancer (Follow Up)
[QUOTE=Rubber Nursey]I am. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story and wish you the very, VERY best of luck with your ongoing treatment. My thoughts are with you. x[/QUOTE]
Well RN, thanks for the good wishes. Since you're keeping score, and its been over 4 months since I last posted, I thought I'd bring everyone up to date.
For background, please trace back through my last post on 6/25/10.
Post 843
[url]http://internationalsexguide.info/forum/showpost.php?p=1036232&postcount=843[/url]
Following neck surgery on 6/18/10 to remove a tumor, I started experiencing headaches. Initially I just attributed them to post-surgical trauma and took more narcotics, but as my surgical wound healed the headaches got worse (and my narcotics use increased). I spent most of the summer lying on my couch in misery as I continued to lose weight (and muscle mass).
Several imaging studies (CT and MRI) were conducted. One of my chest showed that the spots on my lungs had grown from 2-3 mm to 5-6 mm, and several new smaller spots had arisen, all of which confirms that I have a metastasis to my lungs. That by itself makes me terminal, although I don't know when (and the doctors don't want to guess).
Similar imaging of my head showed nothing unusual. In early September I developed a "3rd Nerve Palsy" (meaning I could not control the movement of my right eye, due to unknown damage to the oculomotor nerve) so they did a PET/CT on 9/7/10. I called for the results the next day and was told to report immediately to the ER. It seems they thought I had a thrombosis (blood clot) in my right Cavernous Sinus (CS) and wanted to admit me as an in-patient. However, upon review by more senior staff, they decided it was not a thrombosis but some unknown growth. They sent me home with steroids and instructions to try stopping my use of narcotics.
The steroids finally relieved the headaches, but now I could only use my left eye. They also had me fiddling with lots of other drugs (in an attempt to control the headaches with lesser intervention) but I ultimately came to use the powerful steroid Dexamethasone exclusively. My oncology team met and decided to offer radiation treatment to my CS; this would be my 3rd round of radiation, albeit to a new area, as I never did follow the neck surgery I had on 6/18/10 with additional radiation there.
So, having quit the narcotics (not easy, as I was mildly addicted) and switched to Dexamethasone, I underwent radiation from 9/29/10 through 11/05/10. The goal of this radiation was to kill the growth in my CS, which (hopefully) would eliminate the headaches and restore my vision. Progress toward these goals is evident, but its too soon to declare success. Headaches seem to be gone and control of my right eye has improved but I still cannot use it properly. Right now I'm trying to taper off the use of Dexamethasone.
In the interim, they've studied my tissue samples and found that my cancer is due to the mutation of a gene known as PIK3CA. (No doubt this mutation was caused by the HPV-16 virus.) This is a common mutation in many cancers, including breast cancer and non-small-cell lung cancer, so there is a large market for specialized drugs (called PIK3 inhibitors) that target this mutation. Consequently, there is much research activity to develop and test such experimental drugs. I'm now on the waiting list for an on-going Phase 1 clinical trial of a new PIK3 inhibitor. Later this month I'll get a chest CT to help determine whether/when my disease has progressed sufficiently to start such treatment; the spots on my lungs need to be at least 1 cm, or they would be too small to measure any improvement due to treatment.
In summary, I now have metastases to my lungs and CS. Plus I have a small node in my neck indicating a likely recurrence there. The CT scan later this month is likely to show 1 cm lung spots, so its likely I'll enter a clinical trial in early 2011. Maybe I'll get lucky and this novel PIK3 inhibitor will cure me, but such chances are truly remote.
So this is what HPV-induced tonsil cancer is like, in case anyone was wondering.
3 photos
Cigar-burn style marking on thighs?
Watching a couple of videos from a certain paysite, I noticed a common theme on two of the girls. There were cigar-like marking on their thighs, almost like round scabs. On both girls, they were the same size.
Now, this sparked my attention not only becuase it looked unnatural and was on both girls in the same spot, but also because there was a girl in one of the other forums (I want to say Thailand) that had these markings. I believe she was called Nan and had been around the game a long time - everyone knew her.
Question is - what are they? What's it caused by and is it spreadable to the monger? This guy Rico fucks the girls without condoms... I'm surprised he hasn't caught anything yet. Only a matter of time.
Below are stills from two movies of two different girls.
From my part of the world
[Quote]Question is. What are they? What's it caused by and is it spreadable to the monger? This guy Rico fucks the girls without condoms. I'm surprised he hasn't caught anything yet. Only a matter of time.[/QUOTE]In my part of the world (Costa Rica) there is in the countryside a biting insect that leave a painful and bothersome mark on you. You WILL scratch this I assure you for some two weeks at least. And the results will be a permanent mark on your skin which looks like shown in the pictures.
This insect prefers all and any of the skin regions normally covered by underpants but exposed when you need to accomodate nature.
Mellow