Hi David, sorry to take a few days to get back to you -- I was out of town at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston this week without much access to email and Internet.

Here's my situation. I went for an appointment to see my ENT in mid-April (three months after my last rad treatment). I had a PET scan scheduled for July, which marked the six-month mark. But my ENT told me to go ahead and do a PET ASAP "for my peace of my mind." I got it done in mid-May and it showed two hot spots (obviously not helping my peace of mind much).

One hot spot happened to be nothing (at least that all my docs and other scans can tell). The other turned out to be in a lymph node in my neck, just below the area where they radiated. It was confirmed during a surgery in which they did an excision biopsy. It's amazing because no one could feel it, not even me. It was just a little tender in that area to my touch. But the doc said it was the size of a quarter...

The theory is that this likely was there all along. So in a sense, it's good news in that it didn't recur in an area already radiated. Of course, the sucky part is that I have to go through radiation again, and add chemo to the mix this time as well... two to three more months of craziness...

Let us know how your appointments go... wishing and praying for the best for you...