Perry head coach Carl Dixon is on the mend after cancer surgery

Carl Dixon had an odd feeling and some swelling in his neck, and the day his Perry football team played Baldwin, he went to see his family physician.

The doctor checked things out.

"He turned pale as a bedsheet," Dixon said of Dr. Gerald Brantley, who played with former Perry head coach George Collins at Warner Robins in the mid-1970s.

An appointment was made for a few days later with an ear-nose-throat specialist in Macon who nosed around, as well.

"He came in, looked down my throat, and said, 'You've got cancer,' " Dixon said. "I said, 'Well, Merry Christmas to you, too.' "

The cancerous mass originated on Dixon's tongue, but good news followed.

First, it was an outpatient procedure Monday, and Dixon was on the way home about five hours after the surgery started.

"It looks a lot worse than it is," Dixon said. "They took out about half of the side of my neck."

Dixon has another visit this week to take out some tubes, and he plans to be back to work Friday and check out some high school football playoff action Friday night.

"He said he was coming back to work Friday," longtime Perry assistant Randy Moss said. "Knowing him, he will be. He's a stubborn rascal."

The next step, Dixon said, is for "a robot down my throat, I guess, and clean that up" around the base of his tongue.

Dixon said the prognosis is positive and that doctors believe everything is treatable and that there's a 90 percent success rate with what Dixon has. The 63-year-old is in superb shape and said the sudden health issue seems odd, because he feels so good. But he said he feels like he's on house arrest, since he has to sit still for awhile.

"He's bored slap out of his mind," Moss said with a laugh. "That's going to be the hardest part for him is just sitting there."

No question.

"And you start seeing every commercial that comes on after 9 o'clock," Dixon said. " 'If you're a cancer patient ...' or for the Cancer Center of Atlanta."

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 7:42 PM with the headline "Perry head coach Carl Dixon is on the mend after cancer surgery ."