Thank-you Ann,
Your message and those of many I have read thru here on the forum have helped a great deal in clarifying a path for me. I realize that I must fight this beast with all I have in order to live to see my kids grow up. I will call the Dr. who is going to operate and see if they can hook me up with another patient that has had the surgury I think that is a great idea. Lots I have read here has given me hope.

The good Lord doesen't give us more than we can handle so I guess I can handle this bump in the road! I was fortunate enough to speak with my brother's widow this weekendan she assured me that my brother had no regrets. In fact he wore his scars like a banner for Oral Cancer to get the people out there more aware of this type of cancer. So many people don't know how prevalent it is. Perhaps I can continue his mission in that department. If I can prevent one teenager from starting to smoke as I did at 13 it will be worth it. In fact I didn't get sick until 5 years after I quit.

I was very fortunate that I got to see the oncologist in London, Ontario just two days after my biopsy results in Windsor. The wait times for referals in Ont. are very long. My sister-in-law told me not to rule out divine intervention here!! And they want to operate in 2 weeks!

So I will have more questions for the surgry team when I go up for my pre-op assessment next week thanks to all the info on this forum and website. I will keep you all updated with my progess.

Thanks again for the support.
Betsy