Hello,

First of all I thank you all for being here and to my friend Jim, a bottom of tongue squamous cell carcinoma cancer survivor. Jim said his wife found a lot of useful information shared by patients on your forum.

My name is Roger and I�m 67 years old, self-employed from Santa Cruz, CA.

Monday, July 14 I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma cancer on the base of my tongue and bilateral lymph node cancer with the right lymph node more prominent. The week before I was called in to the ENT doctor because an order CT scan prompted him to take biopsies of the suspected bottom of tongue and lymph node tumors. The ENT doctor said it was Stage 3, T2N1MX and that the biopsies indicated �p16 positive�. He said patients with p16 positive markers do really well with the radiation and chemo treatment. On Tuesday (July 16) I went to the radiation oncologist and appointment has been set for me to get a Petscan and a simulation on Tuesday July 20. While at the radiation oncologists office I had some questions as to why they did not have surgery as on of their treatments (as I had noticed robotic surgery on the Stanford Medical website) and the doctor showed me a website that had all types of cancers, along with the Standard for Treatment. This tree diagram did not call for surgery. Then, on Thursday (July 18) I went to the medical oncologist (my friend Jim accompanied me) and he summarized that the base of tongue was the primary cancer and that it had spread to the lymph nodes. He also said the Petscan would tell us if the cancer has metastasized to other parts of the body and would make the stage of cancer definitive.

Stanford University has a Tumor board that meets every Thursday, and it was agreed upon that I would be referred there if they could see me soon. I have not heard back from the doctors on that yet.

Yesterday, I spent some time studying the Anderson MD website regarding their Proton radiation therapy. I intend to call them tomorrow morning. I have two friends who have survived their cancers: one was base of tongue and the other was tonsil cancer. At my friend�s recommendation I read your founder�s story. The common thread in each of those descriptions of the therapies is that the therapy side effects are hellish and that they could not have done it without their wives.

At this point, I�m very seriously considering going to Houston for the Proton radiation (and whatever else they deem appropriate) which I understand is around 8 weeks. Can anyone give me insight as to their experience with Proton radiation therapy. Can I do this therapy without a family support person? It�s possible that significant other who lives in New Orleans can get off work to be there, but that is not certain. Does Anderson have a living facility to accommodate persons without a family support person?

Thank you for reading this. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks again, Roger.