My husband is 8 mos post-Radiation and 3 1/2 months post RND. The dr's said they'll follow up with us monthly for a year but all they do when we go in is look in his nose/mouth/throat, feel his neck and the inside of his mouth, scope his throat and tell us it all looks clear. I'm very suspicious how scientific this is? Wondering if we should have/expect a cat or Pet scan within a few months after surgery? The knot that started all this he had for along time and they never would commit that it was cancerous until they took it out at surgery then said it was all cancerous...wonder how much they can tell by just 'taking a look around' the areas?

Jeani,
With me it was about the same. ENT didn't want to call for a PET until a year after RT. RO called for one about 5 months out and it wasn't useful, because I was still too "hot" from the treatments.
ENT checked me monthly, in the same manner as your husband. Everything was fine until 10 months past RT they found a "soft spot", byopsy proved SCC present, so I'm off to surgery again and back down that road.
They really didn't think mine had or would spread to other areas of my body, which is why each check up consentrated on the ear, nose, throat areas. After my second byopsy it proved them correct, the only cancer "hot spots" in my entire body where the two in my mouth....good luck...

At Moffitt I was given a CT scan w/ contrast for head area after about 3 months that also included my upper lungs. It showed "areas that can not be excluded" in my lungs. Dr's said not to worry.....yeah right so they did another one in another 2 months and while the first areas had cleared there were 2 new spots in the lungs so we did another one in another 3 months and this time finally I got an all clear.

Not offering advice, just what happened to me.

I am 2 years out from my last surgery. I now see my surgeon every 8-12 weeks, my RO every 4 months, and my MO twice a year. In addition, my GP sees me every 3 months for all of the other usual issues - BP, etc. There are also nutritionists and psychosocial oncology specialists available at my call at our Cancercare Center.

I get a contrast CT every 6 months. I get an annual chest x-ray for some "nodes" that we evident when I was first diagnosed 5 years ago.

If I ever have a lump/bump, my Surgeon is very accommodating and usually sees me to biopsy / look at it within a week or so.

So far, the above has worked. I continue to be thankful for each day and greedily ask for more!

Hugs

Donna

We go every 4 months for an oral exam, 1 chest xray every yr.
Would feel so much better if we had a PET scan every yr but our Dr said that most insurance companies are raising a fuss over the cost. If needed tho the Dr would order one ASAP.
Any new bump tho we will be in that office immediatly.

Thanks, I guess I'm just so leary as we're at the Va and they use Dr's from the neighboring hospital (which for the surgery was UCLA) on rotation so we never get the kind of care that Pandora talks about...I don't even know if we're going back to the RO as we went last month (2 mos after RND) and he said there's no more he can do for us (maxed out RT) so he didn't know why we were there?
Guess I need to ask the ENT surgeons again when they'll do a scan as when I asked last time they said what they were doing was the complete exam, every month?