Oh Marylin...I know exactly how you feel, but was my husband who had/has the cancer.
His was tongue...given ONLY 10% (Ten percent) survival rate...
imagine the greif, horror and river of tears we cried when this "happened" one summer 1985.
If things couldn't be worse...his folks blamed Larrys cancer on ME and spent all their energy trying to get Larry to leave/divorce me.
They were upset because I fed Larry healthy vegetarian foods.
They are NOT Christians and upset Larry has joined my Protestant Faith.
They NEVER changed thier ugly behaviors and was one of the hardest trials ever, having to deal with THEM and Larrys cancer.
Larry was just 36 yrs old. Handsome too!
The ENT we had is a wonderful person, good surgeon, awesome bedside manners too...but...his training is for too drastic measures.
He was wanting to remove Larrys lower right side jaw-bone, half his tongue AND ALL the Lymph nodes in his neck, under his arms and on down depending on the biopsys', CT scans.
They still do quick frozen pathologies during the surgeries these days.

Larry was warned this is a very drastic surgery with not much good outcome,
but was only option given for Squamis cell carcinoma that had been allowed to fester several months...
A doctor Larry 1st saw claimed he'd only bitten his tongue, don't worry,
just take the antibiotics I've ordered.
What a horrid doctor in need of big lawsuits!

Because of waiting 2 months later, it had grown to size of large grape and Larry could hardly chew his food.
Larrys uncle is also a physcian, and teaches up at the Med school...
he insisted Larry have second, 3rd opinons...we were comfortable with just "going" along with our ENT.
Turns out the ENT was very wrong in his older info techniques/surgery.
The other ENT's (2 second opinons)
Mouth cancer surgery statistic showed he would NOT benefit from such drastic surgery, and removing "only" 1/3 of his tongue, the floor of his mouth and tissues around his jaw....skin grafts from his thigh....and 8 weeks of radiation.

Larrys orginal ENT promised to do more research prior to Larrys surgery AND as much consulting as he could do, so we stuck with him.
So late August Larry had the 6 hour surgery...the ENT and Surgeon came to his room before surgery and had prayer with us.
It was the longest day of my life knowing my husband was laying on the surgery table having his face altered and tongue hacked away.
I won't go into details...but it was a very long healing process.
Ever bite your tongue?...now imagine having 1/3 of it cut off.
Morphine I poured down his nose tube only took the edge off his pain.
His mouth was sewn shut for few days after surgery.
He was off work 6 months and while Larry recieved his Radiation he engeineerd and installed our new churchs sound system.
He spent the day alone working on something that was much needed.
It helped keep his mind off his pain, plus blessed others in putting in the sound system...saving the church loads of money!

Larry has had lots of mouth issues from the effects of radiation and time bomb cells...but today he's full of life, works hard...
He's an engineer with Motorola doing 911 and ER radio systems here in the Pac NW.
He teaches bible class, has NO speach impedement like is usual for such surgery...
Your tongue grows back as its grandular tissue/muscle. Just like a lizard!
Looking at him one could hardly tell he's had such surgery or radiation except for the tatoos on his face, neck and head....and his lack of taste buds, saliva is hard on his teeth.
With todays medicine, we've come a very long way...even catastrophic breast cancer is survivable these days.
So your son will no doubt has years of good times ahead of him...and hope your next frantic request for prayers will be for a smooth delivery for your grand babies!
And can I make one observation about your statment above...The Lord Jeses ALWAYS has us in the palm of His Hands...no matter what...even in death.
He's always by our side, with arms surrounding us.
Sometimes He must allow us to suffer the consequences of bad choices we've made...such as smoking, drinking, chewing tabaco etc...but Larry didn't do such, but he did smoke a few cigaretts for 2 years, but quit when we married in 1973.
I don't want to "discount" what you stated about the Lord having Keith in His hands tho...don't misunderstand me about this...but I worry if others reading this may think things like "Well WHERE was HE when my loved one was dying or very ill....wasn't HE with them as well"?
Yes....no matter what...HE is ALWAYS there with and for us...but not always in ways we are willing/wanting.
I've begged the Lord to heal me, take my pain away...but so far His answer has been "NO!"...but why me?...then again, why NOT me?
But like I've said....we may be allowed to suffer from the poor choices we've made.
We all will continue to pray for your son and the road ahead WILL stay smooth and all will be well the rest of his life.
My favorite verse is Rev 21:4....No more of this suffering!
Until then.....
CryTears

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