My lump began in November 2012, I would say it was about 3/4 of a golf ball size the majority of the time until after the biopsy in January 2013, I am not sure what the biopsy did but after that it grew much larger faster, if I turned my head to the side it was visible. The needle biopsy was inconclusive, I am not sure if that was because they did not get a good sample or what, I do remember somethings that were said between the nurse and the DR at the time of the biopsy and I got the impression she didn't know what to mix with the sample and he was frustrated, I didn't feel real strong about the way it was done and wasn't surprised when I didn't get a definitive answer from the results. The lump itself was not painful, my jaw and ear had an off and on ache, it would get pretty bad at times, it was bad enough I needed some pain relief to make it thru some days. That began October 2012, I remember because it was a weekend and I actually missed watching one of the major college football games to go to the urgent care for the pain (that is pretty severe pain for me). At that time I was diagnosed with TMJ and told to wear a mouth guard at night and stop grinding my teeth. HA! He did look in my throat and said it had a "few spots on in and the tonsil was little swollen" and he gave me some antibiotics if I wanted to take them. Another thing I have often wondered about, the last year or so before my surgery I had begun having terrible sleep apnea and snoring, since my surgery and the removal of my tonsils I barely snore at all, I often wonder how long the cancer was on my tonsil, by the time they removed it it was (I believe he said) almost 4 cm. The surgeon removed both of my tonsils, 2 lymph node, and the cancer had spread to surrounding my carotid artery and was attached a nerve from my shoulder, he thought I would have difficulty with that shoulder because he actually had to pick it off the nerve.
The surgeon told my family after surgery (I listened later because they recorded it) That once he got in there it was obvious to him by the way it looked and felt the tonsil was cancer and the primary source. Maybe he had a better view of it than the scope, I don't know. I do know that along my journey there were several red flags that my Dr and I dismissed, I dismissed because I was a 38 year old female, we don't get throat cancer!! And I have been so healthy my whole life, never a broken bone, surgery, hospital stay, I had never even had an IV till this! So that's my story, most of it I have 1.5 weeks of tx left and I will take it from there.
As I said before the lesson I learned is pay attention to things going on in your body and keep asking questions until you get answers. Statistics don't mean a thing, all they mean is some people have cancer some don't.