I had my consultation at the Cancer Center yesterday. All in all, it went well. Weird feeling in throat is reflux, thank God. The surgeon said he will be removing the tumor in the back right portion of tongue and "possibly 1/4" of right side of tongue. He will be doing a right neck disection and removing about 25-30 lymph nodes to test. He said there is "maybe a 30% or so" chance that I will not need radiation. I pressed him for that prediction. I am glad that there is a possibility that I won't need the radiation and maybe no chemo. But from what I have been reading here, if you forego radiation your chances of recurrence are much greater. I would rather just go thru hell now and lessen my chances of recurrence as much as I can. I don't really know what to think...can they be so sure there is no cancer from checking that number of nodes? What do you guys think? All in all, I feel real lucky about the visit. The throat issue had me on the verge of a total flip-out.
I guess I will get the staging after the lymph nodes are examined.
Denise