I actually have a change of plans. I am just going to have one node removed and biopsied.

I had a formal second opinion and informal third opinion (sent the PET and CT scans to an out-of-state college classmate who is a radiologist, and had him run it by his cancer specialist colleagues). My clinical exam and my PET scan are both good. They can't feel any lump or node via manual examination, and the PET did not light up at the node site. But the CT scan shows something still there, identified in the CT report as necrotic lymph node. That means we have to do something but there is nothing in any scan, either the first ones last summer or the most recent ones in January, that implicate any other nodes. The selective dissection would have been a precaution. After weighing all the factors my wife and I have decided not to do that. If the single node biopsy comes back negative we will just go into what my doctor calls "prayer and follow up mode."

Dan