Okay-read your replies and they are appreciated, very much!!! Brian, I do not want to upset you by this, but I did go to Memorial Sloan Ketterings Website and read up on their care. I agree 100% that that would be the place to go, IF i lived in North Jersey or NY. Fortunately for me, I live in South Jersey and right over the bridge is Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, which also is a hospital that only deals with Cancer. And since I work in a hopsital that is affiliated with them, their docs (including the oncology group that I am going to see) comes to our facility daily. I have spoken with a few people and a nurse who used to work with that group, and she said that they are very competent physicians. They have no personality, as she puts it, but they will get the job done. I am relying on these doctors to take one look at the slides and give me my diagnosis. If this does not happen, I will for sure be taking everyone's advice and head to MSK for my second opinion. Right now though, I do not believe it is a necessary action because I have not yet even been to see the Oncologist (whose office I already had my slides sent over to) for his opinion. If he can give me the diagnosis I need and am axpecting (base of tounge cancer), I will have no need to go elsewhere for treatment. Besides, if I did go to MSK for a diagnosis, to continue with their protocol for treatment, and if that treatment were radiation, I would have to make a daily commute of 3 hours round trip for a 15 minute zap on my throat with 2 toddlers in tow. I cannot expect my mom or mother-in-law to stop working and paying their bills so that they can accomodate me by watching my children. What is best for my family and my piece of mind is staying as close to home as possible for now. Hopefully, if it is a very early and treatable stage of cancer, it may "only" require radiation and I will be "like new" again. I am praying for that to be the case! Agian thatnk you for your posts and I will continuew to update you on my progress!
