I'm Incredibly Thankful to Dr. Kraver For Catching My Oral Cancer. I Overcame to Become a Warri
Cape Dental Care
https://www.capedental.com
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Speaker 1
We've just always felt like one thing prepares you for another in life. We are a restored marriage we had been married for 14 years went through a tumultuous divorce. We're apart for almost three years and then through a whole lot of faith and a tremendous level of counseling. We remarried on our original anniversary date in the phrase we use we stole back what was stolen from us.
Dr. Phillip Kraver
I first met Lisa at our office for a chipped filling. Upon Our initial examination, including our oral cancer screening. I noticed a little white spot on the side of her tongue and I just we decided to watch it for two weeks. She came back in for some additional work in a cleaning and we noticed that the lesion that we found was still there.
Speaker 1
There were just two little spots on her tongue. Nothing of any real concern but certainly something he noticed and said, let's look at these and have you come back in a couple weeks and we'll check them again, but I think she went and looked in the mirror in the either in the car right in the parking lot here when she called and canceled said this is nothing don't worry about it. And then it was a couple of more weeks. She just all sudden had this terribly sharp pain happen in the side of her face or mouth and of course went back in and from there, it was noticeably different and dr. Phil said let's go get this checked by somebody, so we were within a couple hours getting a biopsy and before the biopsy was even taken the guy had looked at it already says I'm going to go ahead and take the biopsy but here's what it probably is.
Dr. Phillip Kraver
Her biopsy came back as squamous cell carcinoma. Luckily it seemed as if we caught it early enough to where she'd have successful treatment. At Moffitt they went to the normal regimen of treatment for squamous cell carcinoma, which is surgery radiation chemo and from all we could tell it was successful.
Speaker 1
It would have been early 2016 after the first surgery. They went back into the base of her mouth. There was an area taken out. She had to relearn to speak because her tongue moved differently and then there was a course 35 or so radiation treatments and then seven chemotherapies and she did the seven weeks of that and then six months later there was a recurrence and it moved just enough to where it was going to necessitate removal of her vocal cords, so of course that became a six-week panic attack basically where we knew for six weeks they were taking her voice away, the voice of a woman who used to sing.
Dr. Phillip Kraver
I think it was pretty devastating to hear that for her, obviously. I don't know how someone takes news like that any other way, but we knew that had to be done to save her life.
Speaker 1
The surgical day came and she was she was a soldier in it. I of course being the overprotective husband was afraid of what those last moments were but they were beautiful and they were graceful and she told us she loved us and then she turned and she said, okay, I'm ready. And that was it.
Dr. Phillip Kraver
She entered into what would be the greatest battle for life with so much Poise with so much character, so much strength. She inspires me. She knew what she was about to do and she was walking into it with a warrior spirit that she still has today.
Speaker 1
That surgery was slated for about 12 hours and about five hours into the surgery someone taps me on the shoulder and it's our surgeon. So he basically sat me down and said it's a little more widespread than we thought so we're going to have to take her bottom left jaw. So they they removed her vocal cords, they place the stoma. She had already had a G-tube in her stomach for feeding for a number of months by this point because the swallowing had become far too painful and then they removed her jaw bone from just to the left of center almost up to the joint and since then it's been cancer-free and every day is a beautiful day and we're living life like everybody else, we just live it a little differently now. I find our life to be very proportionate. Some people might look at our life and think it's terrible or tragic and look what you're going without but I remind people look what we're going with and so the way I explain it as is for every Valley I think is delivered to you to walk through an equal and proportionate Peak awaits you. We're going to beat the odds on this one now. We're in it for the long .....
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