So, I met with my doctor to review the pathology reports and get some clarification.

As he mentioned in his email, they did find small deposits of cancer in 4 of the 58 lymph nodes they removed in my neck. And, everyone was right - there is ECE in one of those four nodes. He said it was rather unusual because of the size of the node - it was really small. So, he suggested chemotherapy and I decided to go with both radiation and chemo.

The exact dates are still up in the air as I have follow up appointments with an oncologist at Kaiser, and a consult with a radiologist at John Muir. The John Muir medical center is known as the best in the bay area � it�s a bit of a long drive but I want to get the best treatment possible. But, at a high level, I will start the radiation treatments once the surgery is healed sufficiently, probably in about a month. The radiation treatments are 5 days a week for 6 weeks (30 total), and during that time I will also have three chemotherapy treatments. Now, the cancer is officially Stage IV, T2N2bM0. I'm not sure what the "N2b" means as I haven't seen it on a lot of auto-sigs. But, there is technically there is no known cancer in me right now.

I'm disappointed by the news, but I�m still determined to beat this. It just means that it will be a longer journey than I�d hoped. My doctor advised me that I should take off work for 6 months. When I asked him why so long, he said that it will take a long time for my body to recover from the radiation and chemo, even though the actual treatment is only 6 weeks long.

I'd be really curious to hear others that have had similar experiences. I'm really nervous about the side effects, most importantly anything that could be permanent. He did mention that I might need a feeding tube in the latter half of my treatment. Of course I'm tempted to resist that until it's absolutely necessary. I'm really worried about losing my taste buds for life as he did mention that could be possible, or that the radiation itself could cause cancer decades from now. But, I'd rather have another good 20 - 30 years than to give up now and not do the treatment for that reason.

I know I need to update my auto-signature...will do that right after this. :-)

Any thoughts and feedback would be much appreciated. I'm really scared now, quite frankly. I was hoping all along that it would all be over with after the surgery, but it sounds like I have a long and painful road ahead of me.

Thanks,
Gina