Monica, that's really interesting.

Here's an update in my case - the first path report following surgery was incorrect. Apparently there WAS cancer beyond the biopsy - but it was an unusual type ("poorly differentiated") so hard to be seen.

Once the pathologist looked at the biopsy slides, which had been stained with a special keratin stain by UCSF where they diagnosed me, he realized that he had missed the cancer when he looked at the surgery slides without such a stain, because he was looking for a more common pattern of cells. The pathologist was profusely apologetic and repeatedly said he should not have missed it - as head of the path dept he apparently had higher standards for himself than this. He explained how it got missed, and acknowledged that even though there are reasons, there's no excuse for the mistake.

He was also very patient-friendly, taking time to show me the slides, walk me through what the cancer looked like, etc. And he's now running additional slides WITH keratin stain - for some of the margins, and on the larger nodes and on an area where the cancer appeared to be near a nerve. It was amazing how obvious the cancer was with (vs without) the keratin stain - it showed up completely clearly.

Nonetheless, I'm still suspicious of the tongue-rubbing, and doing everything I can to get a solution.

Rahel