Well I certainly hope that the old saying: Third time is the Charm holds true for me. My stubborn cancer is back after the IMRT & CyberKnife one more time.
The pathology report from my biopsy is in
[quote] left lateral wall/ tonsil fossa -fragments of In-situ and
invasive, moderately differentiated SCC. several levels were examined P16 is strongly positive [/quote]
On the positive side, Dr Google says:
[quote]Thus HPV positive tumours are characterized by high expression of p16.... Moreover, since transcription of the E7 oncogene is required for p16.. upregulation, it has been suggested that carcinomas overexpressing p16.. represent those tumours in which HPV has been involved in the carcinogenic process [31]. [/quote]
I am getting a MRI at 7:30 am this Friday and see my ENT this Tuesday. What will be done depends on what the MRI shows.
I'm still in basic shock/denial so doing okay. My wife however is really crushed. She took verbatim notes all during my TX and the last time around, and each of the doctors used the word "catastrophic" to describe what a third occurence would be. She's afraid it was an euphemism for terminal. It did not comfort her that my ENT is already contacting the CCC to see if they want to try a third round of radiation after surgery.

Boy, this forum is getting pretty depressing. Christine and I used to laugh about how both of used to refrain from looking at this forum for fear of "jinxing" ourselves back before we joined the club.

Any suggestions from you caregivers out there on what I can do to help ease my wife's pain& worry?. I'm being positive and stressing that I'm okay with losing the rest of my tongue, speech whatever but that's not working too well.

Charm