Hi. I'm Hillary and my husband, Jeff, was diagnosed with scc in one lymph node with unknown primary about 18 months ago. Had a modified neck dissection at that time but no radiation. Was not having radiation a mistake? Can't look back. In December 2005, bimonthly monitoring revealed a small (less than 2 cm) tumor at the base of his tongue. Biopsy in January confirmed it was malignant. A petscan did not reveal any spread of the cancer beyond the tumor on his tongue.

We got three opinions re: treatment and were totally confused. All said my husband needed radiation to both sides of his neck and base of tongue. One (Greater Baltimore Med. Center) said to add carboplatin and taxol. (Husband is deaf in one ear so cisplatin was immediately ruled out due to high incidence of negative effect on hearing). One (Johns Hopkins) said that he needed no chemo but if he was going to have any, the carboplatin and taxol combo was way too toxic and he should maybe just have the carboplatin or maybe just Erbitux. The third (Beth Israel) kept changing their recommendation. First they said just radiation, then radiation plus unidentified chemo, and finally external plus internal (brachytherapy) but no chemo.

We were totally confused. (Wish we had found this board back then). Having to make a decision, we went with the cancer care center we felt most comfortable with - Johns Hopkins and the radiation (IMRT with a special Tomo machine), plus the Erbitux. He's also getting amifostene to protect salivary glands. Jeff is nearly three weeks into it and doing pretty well. He just quit work. (He's a P.E. teacher and was feeling too tired.) Had a feeding tube put in before radiation started, but is not using it yet and hasn't lost any weight yet.

I am beset by doubts about whether we made the right choice of treatment this time. Everyone says you only have one chance to get it right. But doubts aside, we are doing pretty okay I think. Jeff is a good patient and religiously follows all the directions about caring for his teeth, flushing his tube, drinking water, watching his nutrition etc., and his spirits are good. Kids appear to be handling it better than I would have expected, despite preexisting anxiety disorder of one daughter and unusual sensitivity to all things medical on the part of the other. I am okay, unless I get super tired - like this past weekend when an unexpected visit to the emergency room (because Jeff was running a fever) kept me up until 3 a.m. The result was that I, who ordinarily never get sick, came down with the flu. So, I'm home sick from work, trying to stay away from Jeff, and typing this e-mail.

I'm grateful to have found you all. I know I will be turning to this board often as we go through this journey and hope I, in turn, can be there for others.