Well, we got back the reports and not surprisingly it's positive. My head is spinning. I don't even understand what I just heard. The only thing that keeps ringing in my head is him saying "this is a nasty cancer."

Can someone help me interpret what I heard(not in terms of dx) but just in terms of understanding the lingo. I don't know what is good or bad here.
It's SCC on the base of the tongue(that's the back,right?). The tumor is 2-2half centimenters(is that big? Small? Doesn't matter?). The MRI shows "node involvement on the same side of the tumor. His concern with that was that it was on the lower nodes(?). It doesn't appear to have crossed the "midline" and the MRI doesn't show node involvement on the other side. However, the Dr seems to think the PET scan might show up more stuff(I think his concern was it being in the lower nodes(?).
He goes for the PET tomorrow. We are setting up an appt at Sloan next week.
The only encouraging thing I remember him saying is that this kind of cancer responds well to radiation.
I want to throw up but I'm trying to just figure this all out.