Thank you Gloria for your patient listening and for your generous offer. I (we) May take you up on that at some point.

Met with RO and surgeon yesterday. They (finally) had the results from all 3 scans. The PET scan result is inconclusive about whether cancer is still active. My impression was that PET was going to be able to tell if swelling and pain in tongue and jaw area was being caused by radiation damage or by new cancer. I was wrong. The oncologists are sufficiently concerned about the area that they are treating my case as though it is a recurrence of cancer until they see conclusive findings to the contrary. That means that they are expediting new MRI and CT scans and performing a biopsy on the area next Monday the 10th.

I’m not even sure how I feel about things at this point. On the one hand, it will be devastating if cancer is back so quickly. On the other hand, I’m glad that they are treating things like an urgent priority and I should find out one way or the other after the biopsy is complete (hopefully?).

After reading on here the invasive nature of the surgery required it is going to present a real physical and emotional challenge. Especially so after having been beaten down by the radiation and chemo treatments to date.

Thank you all (again) for providing this forum as a place to vent and unload the emotional burden. I always seem to feel a little better after writing a progress update - good or bad - on here.

Barry