Hi folks,

My username is Ward Cleaver. My real name is also Ward.

I am married, with 3 kids.

Someone (an administrator or moderator) has filled in the "location" in my profile as "Gastonia, North Carolina."
This is quite incorrect.
Not only am I not from "Gastonia, North Carolina," I have never even been in the town of "Gastonia."

Anyway, my wife was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in October of 2004.

She was completely asymptomatic...no discomfort, no pain, etc...except for a feeling of having a "crumb" in the back of her mouth one evening after dinner that she said for some reason felt stuck somewhere in the back of her mouth. She described it as a very vague sensation, and was certainly in no discomfort because of it.

I viewed the inside of her mouth with a penlight and noticed a rather large mass on her left tonsil.
Of course, we made an appointment with an ENT the following day.

The tumor was diagnosed as a Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the left tonsillar fossa with invasion and growth into the left base of the tongue (T2-N0-M0). It measured 4.0 cm by 2.7 cm.
No biopsy was performed on any of her lymph nodes.
The determination that no lymph nodes were involved was arrived at by the fact that no cervical lymphadenopathy was seen on the CT of her neck.

Her treatment consisted of radiation therapy with concomitant chemotherapy.

Treatment ended the week of Christmas, 2004.

She is currently in remission with no sign of either the original or any new lesions.

Regards,
-Ward

Okay now I have some concerns and would like some input. I have a daughter that gets small white little bumps in the back of her throat at times. They look like pimples. They go away eventually.

I took her to the doctor one time and he told me that it was just food particles stuck and she can pick it off.

The question is should I be more concerned than what I once was because I have had bot?

Once you have been through treatment I guess one will worry more. Any help in this matter would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks
Terry

Re the address. This past summer I asked our web master to set the registration functions of the board so that some fields would be mandatory for people to fill out in order to sign onto the board, (it didn't used to be that way) and that they must be forced to read the rules of the board before signing on the first time. There were reasons for this. Related to location, it is useful for people to do a search of others near them if they want to meet with someone, organize an event, explore treatment facilities and doctors in the local area that others have used and more. Every once in a while someone comes on the board and posts some gag name and address

Brian,
Thank you for coming out like a "mother bear" to protect all of us.

Thank You Brian...Carol

One last thing.... about all this message board stuff. There is a function that you can click in your profile that keeps your name from appearing on the list of recent visitors. Some people do this for whatever reasons, I'm not sure why anyone would care, but it's part of the software we bought to run the boards. I just want you to know that for the people that are administrators, like myself, that function does not change things. I can see everyone, checked invisible or not, that has been to the boards and what threads that have looked at. This doesn't serve any purpose for me, but in the interest of everyone knowing everything, I just thought I would mention it. Also there are functions of the board available to everyone, but which I do not think of much use. For instance you can click on someone's name in the recent visitors list and read their profile, you can click on the title - recent visitors, and see where they are reading and posting as a list. I do this, because I often miss days of postings and it allows me to catch up on posts that others have been interested in and helps me find those posts. None of these functions have any nefarious purpose, they are just tools, some useful, some I think not.