[quote=DawnH]
KitKat, I did have to go under general anesthesia for my excision. I think he was wanting to go aggressive at first. I'm hoping that worked. My next question is what do I do if it does come back cancer? Do I demand a scan or weight for their suggestions? I'm not sure what the standard protocol is.[/quote]

Oh, I see. That's a really interesting approach! Do you know how large your initial lesion was? Mine was only 3 mm, but had some mild dysplasia in the tissue surrounding it, but the biopsy itself still had clean margins. The actual surgery took, as I mentioned, 1cm more tissue on all sides, all of which was clean. Additionally, prior to the surgery, I had a full set of head, neck and chest CT scans, which were examined by the radiologist and my surgeon to see if there was any visible evidence that the cancer had spread to any nodes.

Due to the very small size of my lesion, and visual indication that it had not spread (according to the scans), it was determined that I would not have a neck dissection, because the research shows that it's unlikely that it had started to spread at that stage. So instead, I will have follow-up exams by my ENT every 2 months for a couple of years, then every 3 months out to 5 years after that. After 5 years, I'm not sure of the plan yet - either once per year or every 6 months, I assume. Of course this is provided I don't have any further problems prior to that.

Last week, I also went to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for a consultation with one of their specialists, who concurred with my doctor's plan. The only difference is that he's recommending follow-up CT scans at 6 months and a year to make sure things still look the same, which my own doctor had not settled on yet for certain (we were still discussing).

So, depending on things, this would be the best case scenario for you. But depending on your pathology, you may have additional work to be done at this time. It is possible that they will also want to do a neck dissection to see if there is any node involvement. And depending on what they find, there could also be radiation treatment, etc. But of course that's for the doctors to determine based on the results of all further testing. I will keep my fingers crossed that instead of this route, your situation is just like my own. Or better yet, hat there is absolutely no evidence of disease in the tissue that was removed!

My husband lived in Silverdale when we met over 20 years ago, where he was a Sonar Tech on the USS Ohio.