unpublished tumor photos

As I wrote in my first post... I didn't know about the bump behind my ear until a doctor pointed it out to me.  Which is kind of pitiful because it was a very large bump.  

Here are a couple old pictures of my pesky bump that have not graced the blogging world.

These two were taken before my surgery in Utah.  The 'yes' is there so the surgeons knew they were operating on the correct thing.  It would have been pretty disappointing to wake up with a tumor and no tonsils.

I initially got a CT scan.  I looked at the disc of the images in my lab and we were all trying to figure out where the tumor was.  We concluded it was the white circle on the left side of this picture.  We got it wrong... 

We weren't even in the correct slice of my head.  I don't know how we missed the tumor on the right side of this next image.  Apparently CT scans and MRI images are backwards.  The right side of the image is actually the left side of the head.

After I got my MRI I remember sitting in my Bacterial Pathogenesis class and staring at the pictures of my tumor on my laptop.  I couldn't stop thinking, "What are you?" "What effect are you going to have on my life?"  The MRI images were a lot clearer than the CT scans.

This is a view from behind.  I'm so muscular.

Well the tumor is gone... and much of the muscle in my neck.  On Monday I start radiation for only 7 weeks!  Almost there.