The OCF web site is many layered, and not all of those layers are accessed in the main navigation bars but from links in pages. Use the search engine and the site map to help find your answers. In preparation for a biopsy answer that perhaps says you are one of our family, please read this page first to understand where your results put you in the scheme of things.
http://oralcancerfoundation.org/facts/stages_cancer.htmPlease note my personal message there, to keep your perspective appropriate and proportionate.
Sloan is a world class institution. Please begin to think of treatment teams rather than treatment doctors. This also applies to what is called the "tumor board" which will be docs, from many different disciplines, that TOGETHER will help you decide your best pathway to a successful outcome.
If your nervous doc hasn't told you he will have results from your biopsy to you in the next 4 days, start playing the aggressive, put us in the front of your priorities list, full of attitude person, to get it out of the lab, and you mind calm or you moving forward on a path. Limbo sucks big time. It is emotional purgatory. Do not let any excuses get in your way of a black and white answer. Lesson ONE in all this, is that this is a complex situation with lots of information quickly thrown at you and difficult decision needing to be made in an expedient amount of time. In order to have the optimum experience you will have to be YOUR OWN ADVOCATE with the treating professional much of the time. This at first seems counter intuitive, but remember it is not their life on the line.... and respectfully said to the many caring professionals whose training allow us to continue our existence, too often they think like that. You are a New Yorker.... respectfully, live up to the stereotype and reputation, to get what you need when you need it.
The many knowledgeable people here will keep you on track if you ask lots of questions, but you will have to be an active participant in everything, and you will keep your treatment team on track.
You have all of our wishes for a rapid and successful path through all this. No one gets through it alone, and everyone here is going to be there for you both.
