Hi, Karen

What a balancing act! I think that, given your history, they will want to minimize radiation and chemo. In some ways, surgery is the easiest to recover from. Refering to the NCCN Guidelines, surgery to the primary and bilateral neck dissection could be be the treatment - followup with RT or Chemo RT if adverse features are found (or if the doctor is not comfortable with just surgery due to the number of suspicious nodes).

I think I would ask about what impacts your previous treatment could have on your proposed TX.

I would bring in a notebook, and a printed copy of the NCCN Guidelines (appropriate pages).

Best wishes to you and your husband!
Maria