Eric Update -- A GOOD DEVELOPMENT!! but not completely out of the woods yet...

Hello all, just got off the phone with the ENT (after sweating bullets all day)...

Here's the scoop: the biopsy of the lymph node came back negative for cancer (great news indeed). But my doctor, considering all the circumstances, wasn't 100 percent ready to pronounce me out of the woods yet. He wants to either biopsy again or possibly even take the whole lymph node out just to be sure.

I think the concern is over the quality of the sample they got with the CT-guided biopsy. They know they were inside the node, because I watched the pictures on the screen in front of me. But he had to take three samples to be sure (and didn't really like the first two too well)...

Anyone else been down this road before (i.e. multiple biopsies, still having questions even though the report was negative)?

I'm breathing a big sigh, at least for the weekend, though I'm being cautiously optimistic because of the nature of this disease and reality in general...

Love to all who have prayed for me and my (amazingly wonderful) wife... will keep everyone updated on the latest...

I'm definitely staying in prayer for Daniel and his situation... prayer does work... hoping for similiar developments in his case...

Eric

Tongue cancer (SCC), diagnosed Oct. 2003 (T2 N0 M0). Surgery to remove tumor. IMRT Radiation 30x in Dec 2003 - Jan. 2004. Recurrence lymph node - radical neck dissection June 2004. Second round of rad/chemo treatments ended Sept. 2004.