Hi Katie - your story is the same as mine - right down to the dental implant issue. For a long time I've believed that that was the cause of my scc - Did they do a neck dissection? The speed your tumor grew - tells me it's aggressive.. A neck dissection for this type of tumor - even if there's no lymph node involvement is very common as sometimes nodes don't pop up until later since there may be microscopic cancer that isn't apparent at first.

If they recommend rads and chemo take it.

Best of luck and take care.