Liza,

Don't be afraid of the conventional radiation treatments. Manuy of us here on the board went through treatment before IMRT was developed, and we have a good quality of life. The side effects of it during treatment in some are more extensive, but that is heavilyt dependent on the size of the field of radiation. Even using this technology today, is way different than just 10 years ago. I was nuked from my cheek bone to my collar bone equally, from three sides. Today they use a great deal more lead blocking to localize the field, so this is likely not going to be as bad as you think.

My lymph node involvement was bilateral.... that is as bad as it gets. You can imagine that with a unilateral primary, how late a find I was to have a bilateral cervical node metastasis.

I am not fond of surgery only solutions except in really early finds. This cancer has a tendency to put out a "field" of corrupted cells around the primary. Given that, having a surgical margin that is clear, doesn't cut it for me anymore after watching so many in recurrence, which I think is actually a misnomer, and they should actually call it incomplete primary treatment. Those cells outside the margin are not yet cancerous, but researchers who are trained heavily in genetics can detect the changes taking place in the cells that will later cause them to cascade into malignancy down the road.

Please ensure that at this point in time they have scanned all of you including your lungs. It takes a long time for that distant metastasis to take place, but you want to be sure of everything that is going on right now.

As to getting your happy back.... this group here is pretty adept at keeping people emotionally supported. I think if you lean on them, they will help you with your spirits.