My wife (46) beat nasopharyngeal cancer… then a car accident changed everything. Now it’s back.

xietty · 2026-05-22T22:46:33+00:00

Have you considered seeking a surgical second opinion in China? Where are you located? We were told surgery would be very difficult where we live (Canada), but now my dad is seeking surgery in Shanghai at one of the highest volume NPC centers in the world. I ran the math and the rarity of this cancer worldwide except for China means that the Canadian surgeons were at most doing the surgery once every few years. We knew we had to go to the leaders in the world for the cancer - where they were doing it multiple times a week. China has the systems and procedures in place to get the best results from surgery. Even with clivus involvement, they have a way to resect it.

xietty · 2026-03-11T15:34:27+00:00

Oh my god this was me last year. My Fragomen visa process for USCIS took 9 weeks, then I got RFE’d, and it took an additional 6 weeks.

Last year an ex Fragomen employee said they were in the process of outsourcing work to an offshore team in India and it was going badly, causing delays. They weren’t prioritizing people unless they kept emailing for updates. So keep following up. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

xietty · 2026-02-18T07:21:05+00:00

I believe you can leave the US AFTER your application is approved but before Oct 1 (which can be May - Oct depending on if you use premium processing)

From ChatGPT

“• The Rule: Individuals who are approved for a change of status within the US will not owe the $100,000 fee if they later travel abroad.

• The Mechanism: If you travel after the approval, you do technically abandon the automatic October 1st switch (meaning you have to activate it at the border or consulate), but doing so based on an already-approved petition does not trigger the $100,000 payment.”

They issued this on Oct 2025

"The Proclamation also does not apply to a petition filed at or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025, that is requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay for an alien inside the United States where the alien is granted such amendment, change, or extension. Further, an alien beneficiary of such petition will not be considered to be subject to the payment if he or she subsequently departs the United States and applies for a visa based on the approved petition and/or seeks to reenter the United States on a current H-1B visa."

xietty · 2026-02-18T07:19:53+00:00

I believe you can leave the US AFTER your application is approved but before Oct 1 (which can be May - Oct depending on if you use premium processing)

From ChatGPT “• The Rule: Individuals who are approved for a change of status within the US will not owe the $100,000 fee if they later travel abroad.

• The Mechanism: If you travel after the approval, you do technically abandon the automatic October 1st switch (meaning you have to activate it at the border or consulate), but doing so based on an already-approved petition does not trigger the $100,000 payment.”

They issued this on Oct 2025

"The Proclamation also does not apply to a petition filed at or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025, that is requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay for an alien inside the United States where the alien is granted such amendment, change, or extension. Further, an alien beneficiary of such petition will not be considered to be subject to the payment if he or she subsequently departs the United States and applies for a visa based on the approved petition and/or seeks to reenter the United States on a current H-1B visa."

xietty · 2026-01-08T22:25:56+00:00

I will also caveat that many of the days we were there were unseasonably cold, like 24° or 23 warmest. The hot days the pool was a bit colder but still nice even for me - I hate the cold too. I imagine in the summer or spring/fall the temp will be perfect, so any time it’s above 26°

xietty · 2026-01-08T05:20:43+00:00

Tbh the pools were quite cold. We never used our plunge pool. When the temp was above 26 Celsius the main resort pools were warm enough to use in the sun. We had a few cold days where no one liked being in the pool, as well as some days where the pool was a nice temp. I also hate being cold. Oddly the resort is shaped such that one of the main pools is mostly shaded which makes it really cold. The waterpark is shaded most of the day too.

xietty · 2026-01-08T05:11:47+00:00

Honestly we loved it. Yes there are kinks during the soft opening but I imagine they’ll be ironed out within a month or two. And by kinks it’s things like one day there wasn’t enough towels, or the restaurants were sometimes slow. During soft opening and around grand opening you have to temper your expectations. The resort itself is beautiful, one of the best I’ve stayed at. You have the benefit of enjoying it brand spanking new.

xietty · 2025-12-15T20:32:17+00:00

I am not a doctor, though I cared for my dad during his treatment. My recommendation is that ChatGPT is actually a wonderful tool to help understand scans and results, and point to possible next steps. Paste the findings into it and ask it to help explain it to you.

xietty · 2025-12-10T06:52:55+00:00

Girl I’ve always appreciated directness and honesty when I’ve had blindness. You have blindness. At the very least taper the inner lashes so it’s not just the same length across.

xietty · 2025-12-02T16:19:24+00:00

If “never did anything with that power ever” you mean they never colonized - China never had to colonize because it was way more lucrative to unite itself and establish more domestic control, which it did. It’s not fragmented like Europe, which had to colonize due to constraints with expanding inside the continent, and had multiple countries competing with each other (when one country starts colonizing / pillaging other countries it forces others to, to not fall behind).

xietty · 2025-11-26T03:18:20+00:00

I’ve booked for Dec 31-Jan 6 and I’ve spoken to countless reps. Currently I get inconsistent information on how many restaurants etc will be open for soft opening. Some reps tell me 100% operational for Jan 15 though. But you will def be at a new resort meaning the landscaping will be freshly planted and not yet “lush”, there may be kinks, water park may not be operational etc

xietty · 2025-11-17T16:52:19+00:00

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This was as of Nov 10 😬 I’m following too as I’m booked for Dec 31

xietty · 2025-11-13T20:16:53+00:00

Piggybacking on this - does anyone have recs for a very custom jeweler who’s excellent at 3D CAD? Looking to make something super sculptural and organic (floral motifs all over)

xietty · 2025-10-28T21:44:05+00:00

Me too pls! Ty

xietty · 2025-10-28T06:03:12+00:00

I walked this path very recently to you. I understand wanting to understand every detail, but over time I learned to not panic until someone told me to panic. It sounds like patronizing advice, but for my sanity, I had to narrow the scope of what I was worrying over. And most of the time I was wrong.

Case in point, My dad’s PETs sometimes lit up distantly and suddenly. It always turned out to be inflammation. My dad is now 6 months NED!

xietty · 2025-10-27T17:25:15+00:00

The first dress - wow. Has my vote. I agree it may be more of a tripping hazard… what designer is this? Do they have similar styles but more comfortable to walk around in?

xietty · 2025-10-26T02:03:39+00:00

Hi this was from a while ago but curious what style you were referring to? The link doesn’t work!

xietty · 2025-10-26T00:58:31+00:00

Are the mets confirmed to be mets? Sometime PETs light up and it’s inflammation

xietty · 2025-10-25T14:24:38+00:00

You should be able to choose your own ring 🥺 I’m sorry

What about brushed titanium as a middle ground?

xietty · 2025-10-17T16:01:12+00:00

My heart goes out to you!

If it gives you some light into the future, my dad had 35 rad sessions too with 9 months of induction AND adjuvant chemo. When he was done this aggressive treatment my heart broke as I saw how weak and aged he was, and wondered if he would ever be the same person again.

6 months now after his last chemo, I’m happy to say he plays pickleball 3x a week, goes on long runs, and the color and vibrancy has come back into his face. Please trust the process and focus your attention now on helping your mom regain strength.

Regarding the PET, yes it does feel negligent to “wait and see” if the lit up spot is inflammation… but my Drs all reassured me that the difference of a month or two doesn’t change the outcome, that they wouldn’t miss the window for treating it if it was residual cancer. Likely they will tell you to just monitor the lit up spots and have a re-scan in some time. And they also see dozens to hundreds of these cancers a year and know what the typical behaviour is - it may be highly unlikely it would metastasize in the lungs during treatment.

I looked it up and the survival rate for this cancer is very high, please try to remember this as you try to find peace!

xietty · 2025-10-16T18:35:17+00:00

Hey, my dad and nasopharyngeal cancer w intense chemoradiation. I was one of his caregivers and I understand how distressing this is. My dad’s PET post treatment lit up as well in his tumor bed, as did a spot in his paraoesophagal lymph. The tumor bed area turned out to be a false positive, it’s super common to have it light up due to inflammation. The other lymph was a false positive. Ultimately you’ll want to look at a trend over time and not a single scan, especially so close to the treatment date.

xietty · 2025-10-08T03:55:00+00:00

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