dsymae,

I'm sorry you have to go through this, especially with someone as young as your son. If he's a Stage II without clean margins, it doesn't surprise me that his doctors are recommending both radiation and chemo to follow the surgery. Unfortunately, this disease can be fairly aggressive, and often needs to be treated aggressively as soon as possible to try to minimize the likelihood of recurrence.

I don't know if you have had a chance to look around this website to any extent -- if you haven't, please go to the homepage and check out the contents. There is an enormous amount of helpful information here that can help get you up to speed on some of the things you will want to ask his doctors. You didn't mention whether he is being treated at a comprehensive cancer center (there is a list of them under "Other Resources" on this site). If he is not, I would urge him to at least get an opinion from one about the scope of his treatment plan. With this type of illness, it can be very important to be under the care of a team that has extensive, day-to-day experience with oral cancer.

Feel free to post your questions here as you go along. There are plenty of people on this site regularly who can relate to what you're going through and will try to help.

Cathy