Just got the Dana Farber Pathology Review comments of my biopsy.

A few more tidbits of information:

SUPERFICIALLY INVASIVE SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA, WELL DIFFERENTIATED
keratinizing type (0.1 cm in greatest dimension).
No lymphovascular invasion.
No perineural invasion.
Margins appear negative for carcinoma and high-grade dysplasia.
Tumor is <1 mm from nearest peripheral edge.

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My attempt at digesting the above:

Superificial; Good
Invasive: Bad (but good that it is just superficially invasive...)
No Lymph Invasion: Good
No Around the Nerve Invasion: Good
Margins apparently clear: Good
Tumor less than 1 mm from peripheral edge: Bad

I guess the kertinizing OSCC is a good subgroup (except for a tendency to escape undetected even low grade on occasion?) in general.

Would be kind of nice to tell the first doctor he cured my cancer with a tiny biopsy slice...but the whole "field cancerization" thing and the adjacent suspicious textured and firm areas has me doubting that outcome.

I could stand to lose about 60 pounds, just not all 60 pounds in my tongue.

Scratchy throat still off and on...hoping just the dry winter air. Tonsil crypts appear kind of white mucousy looking; but might just be a virus or something, that or reacting to me now on red alert for any lymph nodes and rubbing my neck up and down a couple times a day. SMH.

So yeah I think this is a very minimal procedure planned, only thing that may complicate it if is if he finds things he doesn't like on the scope and starts taking stuff out.

I wonder about pre-approval, as far as I am concerned I'd like him to take as much as any thing he wants to nice and early, even if that does mean I wake up and then find out they took more, and I am now in a hospital for days/weeks.

Get it done while I am out; I mean you can kind of mentally prepare for the stuff you describe NELS, I mean to at least be aware that it'll be a rough go.

Not even January 20th yet. February 20th seems like it is YEARS away.

So yeah I don't thing the Mrs. would buy into the "but I gotta bulk up now honey!" before surgery...unless something complicating happens before the planned date.

I guess because it is caught so early no diagnostic imaging or blood labs is being done yet, or perhaps now the the pathology review is completed they may have some ordered? To be determined.

Maybe on the phone appointment 2 weeks before the scheduled date they'll tell me I need to go in for some blood work/imaging or whatever, or maybe only after the next bit of tongue surgically removed gets its final pathology report.