Hello! My name is Maria and I'm writing to consult about my mother, who is 84 years old. In November 2010 she was diagnosed with oral squamous cell carcinoma after a biopsy of her upper gum on the left side. She had noticed a swelling that didn't go away for some time (a month or a little longer) and after being diagnosed, she underwent surgery on January 5th and the left part of her upper jaw was removed. She recovered incredibly fast after the surgery although she's still very tired, sometimes exhausted by the end of the day, which is no surprise after such a surgery at her age. The thing is, we got the results from the material they removed in the surgery yesterday. Cancer had got to the bone but everything was removed successfully. Now, the surgeon is not happy with the margins left, he says they're too narrow and he wants her to undergo six weeks of daily rads. This may sound silly but it came as a real shock as the surgeon had not mentioned rads before. Mom will have an interview with the oncologist who would be in charge and her GP to make a decision but today she said she doesn't want to do it. She's undergone a lot of surgeries in these past 20 years (hip replacement, both hips, a mastectomy due to adenocarcinoma)
My question is, what would you do? Would it be ok not to undergo rads and see what happens? She says that as the cancer has been removed, it's likely that she'll be OK anyway. Is that so? Are the side effects of rads as bad as I read? Would an 84 year old person be able to put up with them?
I would definitely welcome any opinion or piece of advice!
Thanks a lot!