No, but the answer to your question is more about where the primary was. The lymph nodes in your neck run in horizontal rows, starting with the submandibular nodes directly under the edge of your jaw line. So a floor of the mouth cancer is right there next to them in close and quickly accessed proximity. This is a dangerous place for a primary to be. Likewise the posterior of the mouth is closer to high densities of lymph tissues and nodes, and therefore mets to lymph nodes in that area tend to happen quicker than say from a tongue cancer. But once it is in a node chain (starting with the sentinel node in the beginning of the chain, assumptions are made that visible or not, the rest of that chain is suspect and has to go.) cure rates decline. The more nodes involved, and if the nodes on both sides of the neck are involved as in my case, the worse the odds. Though published data specifically isn

Thank you for the information Brian. What you say makes sense and my doctor has said that the location of my tumor was not a good one. He doesn't talk stats, doesn't like them, he just tells me that I have all the advantages needed to survive, such as clean margins, well differentiated (?), small node involvement, my age, my overall good health, etc. So in my situation I can't ask for any better I guess.
Question: Do you believe that tongue cancer is more agressive then other oral cancers and does oral cancer tend to spread "up" rather then downward. Meaning, if it starts in the roof of your mouth will it spread upward if it spreads??

While it can go anywhere, soft palate cancers can become nasopharyngeal cancers which is not a fun place to be, as well as to the neck and even to the spine in advanced cases. Tongue cancers TEND, BUT DO NOT ALWAYS, like to go to the floor of the mouth and the neck. While I am sure there are printed articles in the journals on this, I can't put my finger on one right now. Needless to say, it isn't something that you should be worrying about, and a journal article and the results therein, may not even apply to you. I like the sound of your doctor. He says the right things, has the right perspective, is positive, and stays away from statistics and predictions. My kinda guy.

Yes, he is your kind of guy............and you are his kind of guy. He has heard all about you (from me) and was thrilled to have the literature I took to him from the foundation. Sentara Norfolk is a teaching hospital (Eastern Virginia Medical School) and he is head of the Otolaryngology department. He does alot of speaking, teaching, etc. He is big into survivors talking to other survivors and gives me other patients numbers at almost every visit.
Did you know you are almost at 1000 posts??? That must be some kind of record!

My evenings (like tonight) are always about the same. I get about 25-50 personal emails a day from individuals who for one reason or another, are too shy to post on the boards, and that is my first project after dinner each night. I cannot let them go unanswered, though often my answers seem too little to be of real help. Then comes a review of the message boards to make sure that people have gotten answers. In the beginning that was a real task before so many wonderful people started jumping in and participating. By midnight I'm usually done with that, and it all begins again the next day, starting with phone calls to the east coast, looking for sponsors and talking with doctors, and working my way through the time zones until late afternoon. Saturdays and Sundays run into the regular week, and Ingrid is always surprised that I often do not know what day of the week it is or that it is the weekend... when your life centers around a passion, a thousand posts, which this one will be the turn of the four digit, doesn't seem so hard to believe or understand. But I wouldn't have it any other way. We are so close to really making a difference at a national level in the next 24 months that it has perhaps become an obsession as much as a passion

Personally I think this board and foundation was your destiny, if you believe in that sort of thing. What you have done for others is remarkable and that we all follow in your HUGE footsteps is a little daunting! I will never forget the first time I said to my husband, "Well, Brian said..................", and he said, "Who the hell is Brian??" He knows who Brian is now and so do many others around the world. That must be such a good feeling for you and a truly admiral passion.