Hi Cheri and welcome to OCF. Insert the usual disclaimer here we're not physicians. If we were, like your ENT, we couldn't tell you anyway because the only reliable way to diagnose it is with a biopsy. The CT will help with working out the staging if it is cancer.

There are a number of things that lead a doctor to follow a particular direction. Risk factors and previous illnesses can point a doctor to investigate a range of conditions. I have no idea what an EKG would be for, I assume he has something indicating a heart condition as well? Anyway not everything is immediately obvious and sometimes symptoms need time to develop. My point is its not necessarily incompetence or neglect leading to delays in diagnosis.

This is a very scary time for you both with a lot of information to take in. You need to strip away the many things you can't control and focus on the things you can. Diagnosis and treatment are made up of a lot of steps, and its best to break down the journey into those steps. The next appointment, the next scan, etc. The next step for you is the biopsy. You'll know in a few days the outcome of that, and you'll know the next step.

Diagnosis, treatment and recovery can be enormously hard work, but they are all doable. It sounds like a cliche to say "keep positive" but it is so true, especially when the path ahead is unclear. Have a mindset from the start that you are both going to fight this, whatever it is, whatever the odds, and you are not going to give up. You'll feed off each other's strength and not each other's fears.

The internet can do two things for you. It can bring you good information helping you understand the torrent of information and new concepts the doctors are trying to explain to you. You can also use it to scare yourself silly. Not every headache is a brain tumour, but Google will point you in that direction. A lot of the information about survival rates and all that take a lot of medical expertise to analyse in context. Just don't go poking around in there. Take everything you read on the internet with a grain of salt (including what you see here) and run it by your doctor.

Lastly, take care of yourself. Everyone, including you, will focus everything on the patient. The caregivers sometimes need someone to ask "how are YOU going?" When you come back here, I'll be looking for the answer to that question ok?

Let us know how the biopsy goes, we'll be here for both the good news and challenging news.