Hi all..

Just a quick update. Mayo performed 2 biopsies. One on my breast and they also removed chain of nodes under my arm. Breast biopsy came back fine and we are still waiting on the lymph node results. Mayo is treating this is "Chronic Pain" and has me on the meds mentioned in my above post. They will not do a biopsy as they see nothing to biopsy. When I questioned this feeling of having a mass feeling where my wisdom tooth used to be, Mayo's explanation was it was a bone. Right next to the mass I have a red patch on the roof of my mouth which is back again. Jerry did VELscope and it appeared it looked ok. As of this week my nose where your nostrils are, on the top of that area is black and blue. Two lines of black and blue and also on my upper cheek where I feel this mass. My neck is swollen, I have a sore throat all the time, not to mention the ear pain. All scans and blood work have come back ok. The area where I feel pain is not a good area for MRI because of the filling in my mouth. PET scan came back ok.

I follow up with my Doctors home who are not happy about Mayo's diagnosis. They are sending me to John Hopkins On July 18th. I do understand it is an excellent hospital but that is all I know. I will be starting with an ENT Doctor and then I do not know. Nice thing about this is John Hopkins is a 4 hour car ride instead of Mayo being a 3 hour plane ride.

So my questions...

Has anyone been there that can give me feedback?
Also, does cancer of the head and neck show up somewhere in blood work? Or just scans?


Thanks for being there!

Jennifer