Roger C. I'm sorry to hear, but felt the same up to all my recurrence diagnoses, and had relief once I knew, and what I had to do next. This is still treatable by surgery, as the first line for recurrences, maybe a flap for more radiation or chemoradiation to follow. If your facility does a resection, flap, with high dose Brachytherapy or HD-IORT, as boost, followed by radiation or Chemoradiation is effective for recurrences. You may want to hit this as hard as you can while you can. Were you ever checked for HPV? The oropharynx could have been the primary all along? They can do it from this and past biopsies also, but may not change any treatment strategies. I still don't know myself, 4 years later, but suspect mine is HPV involved.

Good luck with your surgery consultation, and everyone here is behind you for support.