Hi- I joined this board because my husband was diagnosed with SCC (Stage IV, T4, N1, M0) late May and he began treatment on July 10th. Just as many of you have described, it took a while for him to get diagnosed and then seemed to take forever (waiting is so difficult) for him to actually begin treatment! Soon after noticing a lump near his jaw and experiencing minor ear pain, he saw his regular dentist, an oral surgeon, and then an ENT and none noticed anything that concerned them. He insisted (to the ENT) on getting an MRI and it showed a mass which was later biopsed and shown to be Stage IV SCC. He saw the oncologist soon after getting the results of the MRI, the oncologist put a flexiscope down his neck and the tumor was extremely visible- even to me. We've asked ourselves so many times since then why the ENT did not use a flexiscope or really examine him or suggest an MRI. So, we are dealing with sadness, anger, fear and so many other emotions.

One question I have is whether any of you have had induction chemo prior to beginning concommitant radiation/chemo? My husband is going to have two cycles (over 6 weeks) of chemo consisting of cisplatin, taxotere, along with five days of 5 FU on weeks 1 and 4 and then 7 weeks of radiation concommitant with cisplatin and maybe another type of chemo. The first week got pretty difficult as he began to feel pretty awful about the time he finished with the fifth day of 5 FU.

Because we will have 13-14 weeks of continuous treatment (and we're just beginning Week 2), we're both wondering how to get through this the best we can.

Thanks - Sophie H.