Hi Eric,
Glad to hear you are back in the flow of things!
Concerning your tongue, go back and read some of my postings on an ulcer on my tongue. It reared its head the end of October and is still there, albeit much smaller and not as ugly. My doctor said the same thing to me when I first saw him for this sore. It wasn't gone in two weeks so we biopsied it, all the while my doctor assuring me it was not cancer. He was right, it is a sore from the radiation and they take a long time to heal. Some people have them up to over a year after finishing radiation. Something Brian put in one of his posts to me was this, "be prepared mentally for the TONS of things that you will find in your mouth that are not cancer". Eric, these things will scare the you know what out of you (oops, there's that subject again) but try to follow Brian's advice on it. I was looking in my mouth approx. 500 times a day, I have lowered it to about 100 now!! Seriously though, I remember finding that sore in my mouth, about 4 months out of radiation, I had just started to really EAT and boom, this sore comes up. Boy did it scare me. Listen to your doctor. Knowing your history, if he had any idea it was cancer he would biopsy it now.
Take care, Minnie

SCC Left Mandible. Jaw replaced with bone from leg. Neck disection, 37 radiation treatments. Recurrence 8-28-07, stage 2, tongue. One third of tongue removed 10-4-07. 5-23-08 chemo started for tumor behind swallowing passage, Our good friend and much loved OCF member Minnie has been lost to the disease (RIP 10-29-08). We will all miss her greatly.