My Brave mum

[lisaniris]

Hi
Im Lisa, my mum Iris was diagnosed with ACC on 23rd of Dec 2010, she has already had Cancer 25yrs ago, in her mouth, fortunatley we have a very good dentist that found it, she had radiotherapy, i was only 15 at the time, her first treatment was on my actual birthday day, not a very nice birthday pressie!!! it wasnt a very pleasant experience the following months, but it made me grow up very quick, i am the baby of the family, but when it came to it i would like to think i was the most supportive, and did things for my mum, that i never thought i could do. after a few years my mum had trouble with the fact that the radiotherapy had rotted her jaw, so she went through a 9hr op, were they took bone from her hip into her jaw and a skin graft from her inner thigh into her mouth, they did an excellent job but left her with limited jaw movement, then frequent visits to christies for years finally she got discharged, than in 1998 the year my first child was born...bad news the cancer had gone into her lymph nodes, so yet another op to remove alot of nodes and about 7 was cancerous, there was a few at the back of her ear which they couldnt get too, so more radiotherapy ! but regular mri's after showed that those left wasnt growing and stayed stable, so was discharged again. 2010 and my mum started having trouble, with very, very limited jaw movement, she was sent to a ENT doc who hope i can say this "was a total waste of time" he dismissed her saying "oh yes we had this trouble before keep taking the tablets" i was not happy with this so while we was waiting for a appt with our GP, mum went to our good old faithful dentist, who got us on the right track. then various x-rays and scans later, we went to Christie on the 23rd Dec 2010 and we was told that my mum had ACC, she coulnt be operated on the only thing they could offer was a trial drug, which she has been on for the last 4months, with various not so nice side affects, my mum has kept on working and stayed strong, she is 70years old and she is a true inspiration, i really dont know how she does it, she cannot eat very well she can only open her mouth 1cm so as you can imagine, it is very difficult...im sorry its a very long drawn out story but i think it does you good to get things of your chest, we would love to here from people going through the same......Lisa blip