Beth,
Ok! I am your shining light! I havent posted on here for awhile....that is because I am out living the hell out of my life and working a ton! I am 31 and went down the same path you are going down right now with all the negativity and doubts. Ask just about everyone here I was as stubborn and pissed off at the world as anybody could be. I went to 3 different radiation specialists waiting to hear 1 of them say that I didnt have to go thru with this, then once I made peace with myself and knew what I had to do I went at it full steam ahead. You read all these nightmare stories on here but what we have that they do not is age and trust me that means a ton! All of my doctors told me I would need a feeding tube, they all told me that I wasnt going to be able to drive to treatment, told me that I was going to be out of work for at least 6 months, that my speach was going to be impaired and my life was going to drastically change. WELL, lets see......I didnt take the feeding tube (though there was a couple times that I wish I did when the tears would roll down my face while I slugged down a VHC) not to mention I drove myself to treatment every day and played golf into my 6th week of radiation which helped with my rehab from my neck dissection as well and I was back to work 6 weeks after my last day of radiation. I have put back on 20 lbs I eat what I want and other then some tightness, a small amount of neck/shoulder pain and some saliva issues my life is pretty damn back to normal. I honestly might be in the best physical shape in my life thanks to this BS. I am looking at all the advantages this has brought me instead of dwelling on the negatives and as far as asking about your chances of living....ha I told them I dont even want to hear that cause unless they go by the name of God they really honestly have no idea. Stay positive, hell get an attitude against this because being mentally prepared in my opinion is way more important then being physically prepared!