I am not in favor of a surgical only solution. In 26-29% of stage one and two cancers we know from published data, there are occult (not seeable) mets to the cervical nodes of the neck. This is not speculation. These are not visible to our current scanning technologies for the most part. So I would want treatment from someone that interfaced with doctors from other disciplines like radiation oncology. Some here have had prophylactic removal of the nodes on the same side as the cancer surgically, but at bare MINIMUM, these docs should be doing the proper scans to see if it exists anywhere else in the local/regional tissues as well as the aero digestive tract in general. That means MRI's and CT's with contrast. Don't settle for wait and see, if this comes back as a cervical metastasis a year from now it will come back with a vengeance, and eradication of it at that time is complicated, as it has had a chance to prosper in the lymph system of your body. This gives it access to remote regions. So if he has clean margins, you essentially have a one in four chance of having it in your neck and not know. Get the scans done. Then make an educated decision with a doctor of another specialty to evaluate if you wish to pursue this initial occurrence further. Please note that as a smoker, you are at higher risk for what is called field cancerization, and that alone should make a doctor want to evaluate other locations for possible signs. As to Gary's comment, don't have too thin a skin.... we're re all the architects of our own situations. While Gary is a reformed abuser which can come off as criticism sometimes, his information is very sound and his postings have helped many people. I got that you are proactive in dealing with the problem that has come up. God knows if we came across as judgemental on smokers, we'd probably have few people left on the boards.