Welcome Karen, and Michele Anne , you've found a great support system here - everyone is great.
I'm a newbie too dx dec. 20. Surgery Feb 4th... EEK... Best of luck with everything!

Hi, I am also new to the site this is my first post. My father was just DX with stage 3 base of the tongue cancer. He has complained of a soar throat for about 4-6 months and about a month ago he actually felt with his fingure that there was something. Left base of tongue) Yes, I am fearfull my father is 66 years old and has no medical history other than a somoker since the age of 13. A biopsy is scheduled with lymph tissue and peg tube placement to. Pet scan shows a little something in base of left lung. I went to his appt. and am surprised how fast they go through things and then after your home all the questions come. I'm wondering do we go ahead with the peg tube before we have the whole plan of treatment in order. I am worried about the side effects to treatment also chemo and radiation is the plan and then possible surg after TX.- Ceazar

Where is he being treated?

A tad surprised about the prospect of surgery post Tx but you don't mention whether or not there may be any nodes involved presently.

PEG placement pre radiation is not that unusual.

WE always tell newbies to take a pad & pen or tape recorder when going to a doc appt and don't hesitate to say "whoa, slow down" to any doc.

Hope he's quit smoking now.

What are they planning to do about the lung uptake?

You can always get another opinion but so far everything sounds normal.

He is being treated in northern michigan, it is a biopsy of the mass and a node in the area because the needle aspiration came back inconclusive. No, he still is having a occassional smoke related to the stress, he states it bothers his throat though. I was told that after the biopsy he will then see the oncologist to see what they say about the lung issue. I feel like I am not getting the real picture or is that just normal?
How did the radiation go? My biggest fear is that my dad won't be able to handle it.
Thank you for the support, it is nice to talk to someone who knows what it is like. Ceazar
Keep on Riding:)

Hard to answer all of your questions without more info but as he progresses thru the Dx more will most likely be answerable.

You will hear this a lot and that is we all can respond differently to the same or similar treatments but again let's wait until we know exactly what's planned for him.

Re the smoking...you need to tell him that if he continues to smoke he will die. Period, end of his life. We have never had a poster, to my knowledge, on this site that smoke during or post Tx that has lived to tell about it and they die in a short period of time in the most gruesome way. Tobacco is what has caused his cancer and stopping it now while continuing to smoke will not prevent it from recurring and since he has shown a propensity of the tobacco to cause cancer in his body then he's playing with a bomb that will explode. Smoking with the stress excuse it just that, an excuse to continue a deadly habit. Getting him to stop using tobacco is just as important as killing his cancer. Doing either one without the other is useless.

Ceazar....Welcome to OCF. Please begin your own posts instead of adding onto another persons posting. This way we can properly focus on what your post is about and not take away from the original post, Karen's. (Sorry Karen)

Ceazar, Im a former smoker. Quitting is not an easy thing to do but this is his wake up call. He needs to conquer the addiction and throw away the cigs and get serious about beating this. Upon diagnosis I was so shocked that I did not quit immediately. It took me about 2 weeks to wrap my head around the idea that I was sick and might not be around to raise my children. I was horrified and couldnt handle one more thing until I better understood the situation. Once I got a handle on it, I threw the cigs away and never smoked again. Please encourage your father to understand that he might not get another chance to quit. I hope you understand Im not beating you up about this, Im trying to help you to help your father. David is also trying to help in the above post.

If you dont think you are hearing the whole story, go with him to his appointments. Nobody should be going alone. They should take someone along to be their 'secretary' and write things down and have a list of questions ready. If he wont let you go, then have him tape record it and write down a list of questions. Most doctors do not mind being taped as they know it is helpful to their patients.

Thank you everyone!-- Karen- I am sorry to invade on your post, I am still trying to figure out how this all works. Thank you christine and Davis for your input, every bit helps. I will post new info as it arises. Thanks again- Ceazar