This is gonna sound bizarre - Last week after the initial radiation consult and simulation the "strep throat" returned with a vengeance. I was still on antibiotics (augmentin) and symptom free for like 6 days when here it comes again.

So it's off to docs office who says this time we do a culture because if it was strep then augmentin should have cured it.

Two days later throat culture results says nothing grew, so it could be
1. viral in nature, 2. something related to the cancer. Sit tight over the weekend, give the culture two more days to grow in case it was a slow grower. We'll get final culture report on Monday.

Whoa, what do you mean related to the cancer. Nurse practioner said we reviewed your path report from surgery and they used the word invasive to describe your cancer. I also remember reading the words moderately differentiated which I didn't take to be positive. Combine those two phrases and the imagination can easily start to go wild.

So, of course all this happens late on Friday afternoon, so nothing much can be done until Monday morning.

Now, let's throw one more monkey wrench into the equation. My dentist wants to remove my last wisdom tooth prior to radiation. It's the lower left wisdom tooth, the one immediately adjacent to tumor site. I've never had any trouble with this tooth in past. Next week is earliest I can get it removed. Dentist says we need at least two weeks recovery before rads begin. So, now we're looking even further down the road to finally get to start treatment for an invasive, moderately differentiated tumor. That's roughly 2 months from initial surgery to beginning of rads.

Would you be worried?