It's interesting Paul...

When I went to the first ENT, we spoke at length prior to the exam. I told him my history and asked him point blank not to pull any punches concerning his opinion of my condition. Mind you, I had no symptoms other than a swollen gland on the left side of my neck. However, it hadn't responded to two rounds of antibiotics.

He scoped me and all it showed was a little irritation in a couple of spots. Being that I was a smoker for most of my life it wasn't unusual. He looked me in the eye and said "This is cancer. I don't know what type but I've seen enough of this to know". He did a FNAB and indeed it was SCC. I had consulted Dr. Google and thought I might have Hodgkins and was actually relieved to hear it wasn't. That is, until I looked up SCC! ~lol~ Dang!

Surgeries to remove the palatine and lingual tonsils plus multiple biopsies failed to find the source of the cancer. As you know, a true unknown primary accounts for only 1-2% of H&N SCCs. The team at Hopkins feel my body eradicated the original tumor sight which they believe started in my oropharynx. My cancer was treated as such. That being said, I still had no other symptoms other than the swollen gland. By the time I went in for the selective neck dissection, I was starting to feel some pressure and discomfort due to the size of the tumor and the pressure it was exerting on structures in my neck. It wasn't until the neck dissection and subsequent biopsies that they found the HPV.

The point is, the majority of cases I've read about here and elsewhere don't behave in the manner the OP is stating. I'm sure if any of us had gotten several reports saying we were fine, we would breathe a huge sigh of relief, especially in light that there were no other signs (like swollen lymph nodes). I would take those reports and those that turn out to be dysplasia any day over cancer!

"T"