Hi,
Sorry you are having problems. First, I am wondering where you are having your treatment--are you going to a cancer center that sees lots of oral cancer, are your oncologists well acquainted with it? One place you can go is on this website for a list. I know you can find this list if you do a search on the internet as well, and others on this board usually have that link handy. This is our link, or you can easily search the oral cancer foundation site for NIH cancer centers. http://oralcancerfoundation.org/resources/index.htm#other

However if you have 3 oncologists in on your case and they tell you that you should have radiation/chemo, more than likely that is your ticket to survival. As to why you are thinking it is under control when all you have had is a biopsy, I could not tell from your post.

How large is/was your lesion, where was it located (is it base of tongue, rather than in the mouth), do you have lymph node involvement--all those are questions that factor into this question of treatment. If you are questioning your treatment plan, by all means seek a second opinion, and make it from one of the NIH designated ones if at all possible. Then you have made that second opinion really a valuable one.

Is it worth it? Well I think so. Sure, it is not a picnic. There have been folks older than 70 who have made it through treatment. You must be a "young" 70 year old or you would not be exploring the internet. One of the things I was told was to take one day at a time when it comes to treatment, get through that day. That was great advice for me. You may find you can get through it way better than you thought. Now, for me, after I got the aforementioned advice and "got myself together", I decided I was going to get through it and do well, did not know how that was going to occur, but it worked that way.

I'm a slightly built gal, who was a music teacher for goodness sake, not an athlete, and I think a lot of people who saw me thought I would not be able to maintain weight, especially without a feeding tube, but I did. If I had to use one, fine too, I was just going to keep my nutrition up. Plus I tried to get some exercise mostly in the form of walking every day.

Don't count yourself out before you even get to the main event!
Best,
Anne

SCC tongue 9/2010, excised w/clear margins:8 X 4 mm, 1 mm deep
Neck Met, 10/2010, 1 cm lymph node; 12/21/'10: Neck Diss 30 nodes, 29 clear, micro ECE node, part tongue gloss, no residual scc
IMRT & 6 cisplatin 1/20/11-2/28/11 at MDA
GIST tumor sarcoma, removed 9/2011, no chemo needed
Clear on both counts as of Fall, 2021