Hello folks, and thanks for the many posts from others that I've found extremely helpful and comforting over the last few days. I'm not entirely sure whether or not I am a cancer patient yet, but I had a "slap in the face" kind of visit to the ENT the other day.

For the sake of providing some background I'm currently 30 and I admit to not always having made the best decisions when it comes to oral cancer risk factors. I drank a decent amount in college and I smoked cigarettes for a couple of years. I kicked the smoking habit a year or so after I finished school but I traded it for a chewing tobacco habit which I sort of started and stopped a few times over the next couple years before kicking that one as well. I've also battled acid reflux on a few occasions. I never worried much about most of those vices because serious consequences seemed like such a long shot at my age, and I was sworn (by my wife) to give them up once we had children.

My thinking on consequences has since changed drastically. About 6 weeks ago I got a pretty severe sore throat but didn't think much of it. I used to get sore throats about every 6 months until I had my tonsils out about 3 years ago, generally once I went on Amoxicillin they would clear up. This time I realized after a week or so that the feverish feeling had gone away and I was left with a pain on the right side of my throat and occasional pain in my right ear. After another week I became worried and scheduled an appointment with a local ENT who I found on one of the local "best doctor" lists.

At my first appointment the doctor checked me out and used the scope to look up my nose and down my throat (Transnasal Endoscomy?). He said that he could see a little bit of residual effect from stomach acid, and he also noticed a lesion on the lower right base of my tongue which he said could potentially be Lingual Tonsillitis. He put me on Omeprazole twice a day and a 5 day course of Azithromycin and told me to check back in a couple weeks and see if I was still having pain.

Initially I thought that things seemed to feel better, but after two weeks I still felt a lot of pain at times. My voice felt raspy when I talked sometimes, like I needed to drink hot tea or suck on a cough drop to be able to talk normally. I had pain in the right side of my throat above my Adam's Apple, and occasional throbbing in my right ear. At times it felt just slightly difficult to swallow. I also had a few other random sensations like light pain in the back of my neck and upper chest and headaches that I wasn't sure were related but seemed just a little odd.

I went back to the ENT last Thursday and he looked down my throat again and he asked me if a few areas on the right side of my low tongue were sensitive to the touch of the scope (they weren't, mostly my nose was just hating life). The doctor then told me that he wanted me to go in for a CT Scan and that he wanted to biopsy the lesion on my lower tongue as soon as possible. He said that cancer was still a very low percentage chance at my age but he wanted to be on the safe side.

I got the CT Scan that same day and I brought the images back to the ENT. The Radiologist report won't come in until early next week, but upon glancing at the images the ENT said that they pretty much confirmed what he was seeing with the scope but not much more: a little bit of asymmetry and a swollen area on the right side of the throat, but nothing that he was terribly worried over.

I'm set to have surgery to biopsy the area on Tuesday and I'm definitely a little bit anxious. Mostly I'm wondering a few things: How painful is the biopsy and recovery (not too worried, just mostly trying to figure out if I'll be back at work the next day or should plan on taking time off)? How long does it typically take to get the results? Will the doctor have any additional info/suspicions right after the surgery when he has the chance to get a better look at the area? Do the symptoms described above ring true for anyone who either has oral cancer or who went thru a similar biopsy and didn't end up having cancer?

It's easy to go crazy about these kind of things, I have a 2 month old baby and for some reason I've been fearing the worst all weekend. Reading some stories from other folks in similar situations has helped me to be less nervous if I were diagnosed with cancer, so I really appreciate everyone here and thanks in advance for any feedback.