David is right about SWAG being very big in the tax area on both sides of the playing field. I saw enough inside private top level executive decisions made at the IRS based solely on SWAG - but of course not your garden variety SWAG- but high class, expensive gussied up Consultant SWAG. I mostly played the kid shouting out to the Emperor (trust me - not a career building move but fun nonetheless).
The questions implying I might not do anything at all but hook up with a morphine drip and let nature take its course are there for a strategic reason. Doctors, surgeons, etc are just people with a degree different than mine who unfortunately see patients everyday who just acquiesce to whatever plan of treatment they have or offer and are willing to accept just about any side effect or complication of treatment. Being drastic in the remedy is no guarantee of a cure. I personally believe that medical treatment of oral cancer is back where Breast Cancer was twenty years ago - double full mastectomy for a lump just in case. Neck Dissections are the perfect example. Just take a look at the OCF postings: proud announcements that none of the nodes removed had any cancer at all. Make no mistake, I will do whatever it takes to survive and thrive but it's a package deal. I want my medical team to be comfortable with doing a little less overkill in return for more quality of life. They need to know that I have understood and freely accepted the risks. If there were palliative care with a track record of 5 year survival, I'd be there - but every doctor I've seen has responded that what and where I have cancer is always fatal within two years unless treated with cutting, burning and poisoning. Sometimes less is more