Camille,

I'm sorry for your pain, which I didn't know you had, and may have been an indication something was out of the ordinary that may have prompted your care.

What type of biopsy do they plan on doing, extent of surgery, if it's a surgical biopsy as the back throat, oropharynx is difficult to get at with a fine needle biopsy?

Surgery is usually the preferred treatment for a recurrence, minus or plus radiation or chemoradiation, which surgery was not mentioned? Sometimes the location of tumor, tumor burden makes it inoperable, but still does not mean incurable. Sometimes they do induction chemo to shrink a tumor, and do surgery. There may be many options available, including clinical trials.

Radiation side effects can be acute, less than 3 months, and long term, lasting longer than 3 months, and vary based on the type of radiation, if used with chemoradition, the dosage with Grays, the frequency in fractions, prior radiation, prior surgery, age, health status and other cornorbities. Chemo basically can have the same side effects, but are usually acute.

I assume it's squamous cell carcinoma? Usually the preferred chemo is Cisplatin, but others are used if the patient can't have this due to hearing, kidney issues etc

There is plenty to go over, and don't want to bombard you with any listings, so here is treatment page from OCF, which you can review the different sections when you get a chance for an overview, and we can go over.

Besides myself, many here have plenty of experience, such as Christine, Gloria to name a few. As for myself, I had about 21 different type cancer treatments between surgery, chemo, radiation and others, so there's not much we can't help you with!

Christine has important information on nutrition and hydration that she usually provides.

Main OCF site, Treatments