Wow, you guys are fantastic with "the details." I hope Eric doesn't mind that I've side-tracked his thread a bit, but my husband and I have learned a hard lesson in the past 14 months. Maybe this will shed some light on potential issues he and others may face.

I questioned the IMRT vs. standard radiation for one big reason: I had no idea until this message board that there were different kinds of radiation treatments one could receive. I mean, I have a master's and my husband has a doctorate--we are both in education, but we were not aware of all we needed to know going into this ordeal with cancer. We had no clue what to ask or what to research. When my husband was first diagnosed in Oct. 2002, the doc said it was a "minor cancer" and that outpatient surgery and radiation treatments would take care of it, that we were lucky. He lulled us into a false sense of security. Maybe we let him. I don't even know what kind of radiation my husband had except that he went for 33 treatments and they made a mask for him to wear with markings rather than tatoo his face. He had neck burns and big problems with mouth sores and dryness, etc. (The beam was pointed above the corner of his jawbone beside the right ear.)

As you know from my recent posts, Scott just had major surgery for either one heckuva recurrence or for cancer that was lurking all along. What is really disturbing to me is that the largest of his tumors was the size of a small orange and in the same general area that they were zapping with radiation. You would be correct to assume we were dismayed and shocked to discover that such a large tumor withstood (or grew in spite of) radiation to the area.

Now, my husband faces more radiation if possible. The first cancer was treated by a local cancer center; we had no idea that even for a "minor cancer" (what a joke) we should have sought out the best major research hospital in the area (which is where my husband is being treated for this recurrence). We now know we want big bucks, big research, and big brain power on our side. That is not a shot at local facilities--we just feel somewhat bitter that our local ENT didn't catch the most recent cancer even though for months my husband had all the symptoms (that doc kept saying my husband was having side effects from the radiation and that the good news is "cancer doesn't hurt." Yeah, right.) That has made us question whether we got the best/right treatment all the way around.

So, we went from a T1 14 months ago to a 14 hour multiple-part surgery last month. Next week my husband will undergo a re-resection of bone tissue in his hard palate that did not come back with clean margins. He has paralysis on the right side of his face along with all kinds of other problems. IF he can have more radiation, it better be right and it better work, because the chemo they gave him before surgery was experimental and although they plan to do more in a few weeks...who knows if it will work?

I do know that surgery and radiation offer the best success rates for OC, so I want to be ready with knowledge and good questions when we meet with our oncologist in two weeks. I will not be in the dark as I was 14 months ago. My husband and I want to understand every aspect of each choice in his cancer treatment. We don't want to be sitting here in 6 months wondering if we did all we could to make sure we got the best treatment available to us.

Thank you all for your input on radiation. And thank you Eric for putting up with me barging in on your thread.

Christine