Gary, Yes, my doctors here are giving me good advice--they just differ (the surgeon and the radiation oncologist)in what they think I should probably do--and they both respect that it is my final decision.

I just talked to the radiation oncologist (who is the one who thinks I should hold off on radiation for my mouth)here and he gave me a good overview of the pros and cons of having radiation for the mouth at this stage. He was really helpful (including in telling me there is no good information on how much radiation with stage 2 SCC lowers the risk of reoccurence). He did give me an example of a case he has seen where surgery was used with no radiation and there were multiple recoocurences (but the first was many years after the primary tumor had been excised) which he thinks would have happened even had radiation been given (he called this a "field effect"). Becuase radiation was not given at first though, the radiation could be used more effectively with chemo to treat the reoccurences. So this is an example of when keeping the radiation as ammunition in reserve, he thought, led to a better outcome.