Hi Laura,

Yeah, I also remember the "can't be cancer because it's painful" reasoning about the lesion on my tongue that turned out to be cancer. As you can see from my "signature", I was stage II and had both radiation and chemo. I am fairly young (not as young as you) and in pretty good health otherwise and I was sure I could take it but I will say it's the hardest thing I ever did (including finishing and defending a dissertation!) and I am still in a long and wearing recovery (but I think I've had a slightly worse time recovering than most folks here).

It has really given me peace of mind, though, to know I did everything I could to fight this battle the first time. I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about a recurrence because I know I did everything I could. Like Gina, the ultimate question for me in making the decision about radiation was how would I feel if I *didn't* have aggressive treatment and the cancer came back. I know I'd feel I had sold my own life short because of fear of the radiation and I decided I didn't want to ever take the chance of feeling that way.

My ENT here strongly backed taking the aggressive approach--even when he at first disagreed with the rad oncologist hired by Roswell Park, who recommended that a "wait and watch" approach be used. The ENT's argument was very clear--that I was young and strong and I should do everything I could to try to beat this back for good so that I'd be cancer free not only at the 5 year "cure" mark but also 20 years from now. I ended up going to Dana Farber for a second opinion and based on what they saw as some risk factors of recurrence from the pathology of my tumor, they were much more firm in recommending radiation (and chemo, which I think is worth considering if you choose radiation since it boosts the effectiveness of the radiation by quite a bit). So I went with their recommendation.

It's a tough treatment, no question, but if you choose to have it you'll find plenty of support here from people who have been through it and all sorts of answers to questions you may have. Please do let us know what the tumor board recommends and what you end up deciding.

Nelie