Hello everyone!

My name is Gino, I'm 34 years old, and I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma to the tongue--stage one, or "T1". Being a T1, I was told that the tumor was very small and removable.

The physician who is seeing me, Dr. Francisco Civantos, from the Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of Miami, has pioneered a new technique whereby nuclear dye is injected into the site of the tumor to determine which are the patient's centinel lymph nodes. Apparently, this varies from person to person. After determining which of my lymph nodes would be at greatest risk through this procedure, they were surgically removed. I had both a partial glossectomy in which the small tumor in my tongue was removed, as well as a partial neck dissection to remove the most risky lymph nodes.

The surgery went well. After a week, the pathology report came back clean. That is, no cancer was found in my lymph nodes. Needless to say, I was elated, as I thought my whole nightmarish ordeal was over.

Unfortunately, just as I thought I had dodged the bullet, this morning I was told that my case was discussed at a conference by a group of doctors (I should also mention that I am part of a study), and a more thorough pathology report revealed that microscopic cancerous cells--a little "speck", to use my doctor's words--was discovered in one of my centinel nodes. As you can imagine, I'm pretty devastated.

After telling me all this, my doctor recommended radiation. He told me that up to 3 years ago, he would have told me to forget about the whole ordeal and just resume my normal life. However, he has seen cases like mine in recent years that did not end up very well. Thus, while he mentioned that he would support me if I decide not to get radiation, he does recommend it, as this appears to have been a pretty aggressive cancer. Of course, he also emphasized that radiation entails a myriad of very nasty side effects, and that it also increases the chances of getting cancer a few years down the road. This really scares me, as I'm relatively young. At the same time, he mentioned that if I decide not to do anything, I have about a 40 percent chance of recurrence.

What do you guys think I should do? Go ahead with the radiation? If so, what can I expect? Are the effects as bad as in some of the accounts I've read?

Any advise/input will be greatly appreciated.

Gino