Welcome to Camp Funk

David

 

Back in May, Dave noticed a small lump on the right side of his neck under his jaw line when he was shaving. It was the day we were leaving on vacation so he let it go but in two weeks it grew pretty big so he went in and had it checked out. They ordered a CT scan and that showed a mass that was between 3 or 4 inches extending into his neck. We were sent to a specialist in June who was concerned it might be a tumor so they did a biopsy and it turned out to be full of liquid. The doctor said it was a cyst, not a tumor. The tests came back normal and everything was good.

They drained it out and we agreed to have it removed once it got large again. We waited several months and finally scheduled the surgery this past week on Wednesday and last week Friday Dave went in for a full check up. They gave him a whole bunch of pre-surgery tests. Everything came back normal and they said Dave was in great health. The surgery went fine and I brought him home Wednesday afternoon.

  
Surgery went fine
in and out with no problems

the Dr. removed a 4 inch infected gland/cyst and 2 abnormal lymph nodes

the lymph nodes looked enlarged so he took them out right away

came home and relaxed and took pain meds when needed

On Thursday the doctor called with some bad news. The cyst(90% water) he removed during the surgery had cancer cells in it and some of the lymph nodes behind it had cancer too. We met with the doctor on Friday and what we know now is that Dave has cancer. He has at least a half dozen more lymph nodes still inside his neck that are cancerous and need to be removed. They have scheduled a PET scan for him on Tuesday to try and isolate where the cancer is located. 

We hope and pray it is only in his neck.

What is really weird is that Dave has no cancer symptoms at all. They cannot believe his tests are all fine and that he is not in worse condition. With all the cancer in his neck he should be very sick right now but he is not. The doctors cannot figure out what has caused the cancer and they feel it is possible that it was caused by a virus because he has no other symptoms and everything else looks fine. They have completely checked everything that would have caused it including his throat, tongue, tonsils, nose, lungs, etc. etc. and everything so far is fine.

All we know as of today is that he has cancer. They wont be able to tell us what stage cancer he has or if that is the only place it is until this  week after the PET scan.

We are wiped out. Really tired and still sort of in shock. Please pray for answers and peace. Dave is not sleeping at all even with all the pain meds they gave him from the surgery. He has bad dreams and is scared for me and the kids but he really wants to fight this. The doctors want to treat him aggressively with surgery and chemo so they were happy to hear Dave is a fighter.

we had talked to Odin and Jonah about this but do not plan on talking to the other two quite yet.
It's too much for them right now.

 A few things you could pray for

 that the cancer is isolated in the neck only in the lymph nodes
strong faith  to get through this
and sleep for David

We will do all of our updates on my blog and I will be rearranging some things on here so everyone knows what we need help with.

Thank you all for your prayers, cards and gifts
we couldn't do this without you..