@figuringitout: Thank you for asking about J. He's still very angry, is still having problems related to Erbitux, misses his teeth that were pulled prophylactically, but seems to be pretty much fine. No signs of cancer! But, he's going to have a scan when he goes back to the ENT next month. So, we'll find out if anything has developed. Thank you so much for asking!

HPV+ cancer does hide deep inside the tonsils. Actually, the two main areas where HPV+ OC strikes are the tonsils and the base of the tongue (BOT is the acronym if you see it around the forum.)

So odd about the increased pain after you took the antibiotics. Joel had a similar reaction to antibiotics when he was first seen for the swollen lymph node (branchial cleft cyst ?). But, in addition to severe pain, both sides of his neck became very swollen, he began to run a fever of 104 f, and he wound up with an excruciating headache. He was perfectly well before he started the first antibiotic. His doctors switched antibiotics and he broke out in an amoxicillin rash (no anaphylaxis). At about this point his throat was so painful he wouldn't eat or drink. He had a trip to Emergency and a 4 day stay in the hospital. By the time he got out of the hospital, he had been prescribed 5 different antibiotics, steroids, numerous painkillers and an antifungal for oral thrush. I suspect he had thrush and not an infection after the first two antibiotics. Whatever. That's how we spent the entire month of November, 2010. But, we're both still very thankful that he might not/doesn't have cancer.

I'm glad that you are starting to trust your doctors. Believe me, this episode with J has given me plenty of reasons not to trust doctors and it has very little to do with what happened in November. It has been a nightmare and I have had to question and verify information at every turn. Still, at some point, I have had to learn to trust--especially with the new ENT who does not think J has cancer.

Regardless of what happens with your throat problems, welcome to OCF! You are going to learn a great deal...and probably make some good friends, too!

Sandy