HI Warren,

My husband's cancer was on his tonsil with involvement of neck nodes on the same side. His situation was different than yours but the radiation oncologist said they were going to give a smaller dose of radiation on the opposite side because that is often a pattern of spread. They didn't detect any cancer there but felt they should cover off the possibility of undetectable cancer cells already being there.

As you will read here, many people with a similar diagnosis have had different treatments. John's doctors told us that, overall, combined chemo and radiation showed a consistent benefit of 8 percent and that cetuximab (Erbitux) and similar drugs combined with radiation showed a benefit of about 3 percent. They told us that tests are now underway adding Eribitux to the chemo radition mix but, unfortunately from my perspective, John was a few months too early to join the trial.

The numbers game has sprouted various discussions on this forum but, for me, it comes down to 2 things- one,even a consistent improvement in outcome of 3 percent means 3 whole live people out of 100 did better than they might have without it and, two, it's probably a good idea to play the odds wherever possible.

No matter what you decide, you should know that the swallowing can get really difficult and even pretty much impossible by the end of treatment and that the insertion of a PEG tube can ensure that you get nutrition no matter what. If you don't use it, then great but it you need it you will be really grateful. They took John's out about 2 months after treatment (early Feb) and now it's just a pink spot about 1 cm in diameter and fading.

The other thing to keep in mind is that if they give you heavy painkillers like codeine or morphine at some point , make sure you get a laxative as well or you will almost certainly have serious constipation problems that cause lots of discomfort and could have easily been avoided.

As a journalist, John was able to work for the first 2 and half weeks of radiation then was out of commission for about 3 months but now is able to work full time.

Mary