It's amazing how much more confident and less fearful I feel about facing radiation after reading all of your posts. Thank God this forum exists. I am sending my husband the url and hoping he will be able to get some support here as a caregiver as well.

Cathy, Thanks for the encouragement about Dana-Farber. They now have a form on the web you can fill out to request a second opinion which I am going to fill out this weekend.

I now wish I had requested an opinion immediately except I was still reeling from the news and dealing with the possibility (then) of breast cancer and trying to hand over all my classes and other responsibilites at work to other people without dropping any balls and it seemed so urgent to get the initial surgery done and get the cancer out of there.

I teach at a community college, by the way, so I don't need my voice each day to the same degree an elementary shcool or high school teacher might. But most days I am in the calssroom for 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours each day. I also can teach classes online, if need be, but I really would hate it if those were the only classes I taught.

I have managed to keep a toehold in normal life because I was already teaching one online class this semester when I got the cancer diagnosis (two days after the semester started) and I'm hoping I can keep doing that for the rest of the semester from home or whereever I am for treatment. But I have a colleague who will take over if the treatment gets too nasty for even that to be possible.

Kirk, Your joke about radiation not helping you sing gave me a good laugh! Thanks for that. Good laughs are definitely appreciated these days.