thank you everyone. Reading through posts on this forum has reassured me that even if the biopsy does show 'the worst' things are likely not to be as bad as I had imagined. I saw the G.P. with the painful swelling under my jaw this week and he said that the lymph nodes were swollen but not rock hard as he would expect if they were associated with a carcinoma. He told me to go ahead and have the biopsy, but not to worry. There are a lot of nasty bugs around my part of Oz at the moment, so one of them may be responsible. I hope it doesn't take too long to get the results of the biopsy after Wednesday. I just want to know 'yes' or 'no' so that I can either get on with my life or get onto the problem.