Hi Everyone:

My name is Kim (kcdc) and my partenr is Dave (DaveC). For those of you who have seen my earlierr posts in other sections of the board, Dave and I have been on a perpetual "fact finding" mission since Dave received his diagnosis of squamous cell CA last week.

To recap, Dave is 47 with no other health problems, does not smoke or drink heavily so this was very out of the blue.

Best we can tell, his lesion is approx. 3cm near the tonsil fossa on the right side and does NOT involve his tongue or jaw bone. He as one enlarged node on the right side which some MD's say could have CA in it and some say may not.

Dave feels very well otherwise and woudl not have known anything was wrong at all except for the mouth ulcer he developed 3-4weeks ago.

So, in the last week we have been to Mass Eyes & Ear and Mass General which are the top head/neck locations in the Boston area.

We have met collectively with 3 head and neck surgeons, had his case reviewed by a heme onc M.D. and he has been presented ot the full tumor board and we have met with a radiation oncologist.

We are both nurses and understand the technical aspects of the 2 primary treatment options but we want to hear from REAL people who have chosen either one to help guide our choice which is a follows:

1. Surgery with the graft/flap procedure and modified radical neck dissection followed by radiation by 6 weeks after surgery.

2. No surgery but the M.D. Anderson protocol of booster chemo with radiation that changes into twocie daily radiation by the end of the course.

As you may have seen in my earlier postings, all of the doctors here have assured us that at Dave's stage of disease (II-III). both of these options are equal and qwould probably give him the same outcome. Brian has responded that he has not read comparable results or seen them published. Being skeptics, we are still leaning toward cutting the lesion out which then gives the pathologist and exact birds eye view of size and nodes involved, etc.

But, the radiation/heme onc guys are convincing too. I used to be an oncology nurse and have this lurking fear that the option of double doses of chemo and radiation could make the cure far worse than the original problem and really jeopardize Dave's otherwise good health more than surgery would.

This is where you all come in-has anyone lived either or even both of these options and can give us the REAL scoop about what it feels like to do either? How long did it take to bounce back? How long did most of you REALLY keep your PEG tubes? Could you function and eat?

How about extent of chemo/radiation side effects?

Dave is cleared to be off from now-January but I am afraid if he goes with the non-surgical option he may still be very sick by then.

Thanks in advance for the help-I am finding you are an infinite source of insight.

Kim