Thanks for all the well wishes and advice.

I'm being treated at Sloan Kettering. I should hopefully hear back on the hypoxia scan and the HPV on Monday or Tuesday. I'm starting IMRT and cisplatin on Wednesday.

A question for the group here: Is proton therapy used with this type of tumor? I wasn't recommended or offered it by any doctor at any of the NYC cancer centers I went but it seems like a pretty interesting therapy if they are able to target the radiation more effectively and save non-cancerous tissue.

One very frustrating and worrysome aspect of the pre-cancer diagnosis period was with respect to my diagnosis communication. My primary care doctor recommended a core biopsy and a follow up with an ENT. The biopsy was done on December 20th, 2012. I tried to make an appointment with the 1st doctor that was referred but was unable to get an appointment until mid January. I called and asked to get a second referral in order to see someone earlier. That doctor could only see me on Jan 8th. The pathology report was completed and discussed with my primary care doctor on December 28th. My primary care doctor called me at some point to ensure I had made an appointment to see the doctor, but no mention was made of any urgency. When I arrived at my appointment on Jan 8th after having picked up the pathology report and reading it, I discovered my primary care doctor had referred me to a urologist. I was fortunately able to get an appointment within 2 days with a surgical oncologist and move forward from there. I'm just shocked that my doctor wouldn't tell me that its urgent or push for an earlier appointment. I'm surprised they didn't ensure I was seeing the correct doctor or communicate some sort of information on the diagnosis to me. It was 21 days from biopsy to seeing a surgical oncologist and 13 days from when my doctor knew of the pathology report. Hopefully that delay did not cause any issues with my treatment.