Thank you all for your positive thoughts and sound advice. I am going to have day surgery at a local private hospital on 6th July 2005. I did not remember all of what the surgeon told me until about 48 hours later, probably shock and denial. He said that one lesion looked to him like a squamous (?) cell carcinoma while the white patch on the other side of my mouth was something different, but less of a concern. I am bothered the most be the swelling underneath my jaw which isn't really painful but it is tender and sometimes interferes with my speech and swallowing. The surgeon said that there is a mass there but he doesn't know what it is, but he has excluded blocked salivary glands. I have also developed tinitis at about the same time and I see an ear nose and throat specialist on 27th June. As you say, it is not cancer until the pathology report says so, so I am thinking positive.