Charm I have submitted a lengthly article dealing with the 40%. We hear you. It's in the review process. i actually wrote it back in November but before I submitted it a members spouse died and she did a very eloquent job of describing the process. And I needed to give it a rest.

Recurrence is an interesting topic. If you have a recurrence within the first year of treatment your outcome may not be good. 80% of recurrences that DO occur, happen in the first year (and most of those recurrences are fatal). In the second year the percentage drops to 15%. After that a recurrence at the primary site drops to 5% so year 1 and 2 are milestones.

Tongue cancer presents more difficulty in treatment because it is a tough tissue, contrast the tonsil which is soft lymphatic tissue. I believe that the death rates are fairly even for both types however.

Staging doesn't guarantee anything either - we have had early staged members die and advanced stage members survive.

Locoregional and distant metastesis are another issue. While that tumor is functioning in your body, it is releasing 1000's of cancer cells into the blood daily. The immune system takes them out, Exceptions are where the cells can "stick" like the brain, liver, lungs and kidneys.

It is an insidious disease and, according to my H&N surgeon, a lot of "luck" in involved.

I stopped dwelling on that stuff several years ago. In the beginning I wouldn't even buy a new pair of jeans. Now I just made a 15 year commitment to my new Maltese. Just live to the fullest each day because it's really all any of us have got...