Sorry about the lymph node. I had one show up after surgery as well, within 4-5 weeks. Because I did not have any sort of dissection done previously as my tongue lesion was so tiny, and because of the timing, my MO said she would not call my lymph node a recurrence. In other words the cells were on the way before the complete tumor excision. But in all my official reports at MD Anderson, it will say recurrence. So what's in a label? The PA to my surgeon said it could have happened after the very first tongue surgery that I had elsewhere when margins were left because they did not think it looked like cancer and they were just concerned about getting a sample of it. He said sometimes surgery agitates the remaining cancer cells. Who knows for sure.

Bottom line: you will likely have both radiation and chemo. You want it that way because you will definitely be less likely to have a recurrence with the chemo. I realize this does not answer your question about statistics, but it is difficult to find meaningful ones.

I am sorry you are dealing with this and are young. We have a number of members of this forum who are close to your age so you are not alone. Hopefully you have mentioned your lethargy to your physician as it could have a physical basis. We all react in different ways to a cancer diagnosis. It helps to reach out in the way you are doing by joining this forum.

Best,
Anne