Hi everyone,

First of all to Eileen.He is being treated at Cooper Cancer Institute in Camden.When the oral surgeon that finally recognized what he had and the serious nature of the situation. He wanted him to either go to either Cooper or Sloan Kettering.He leaned more toward Cooper because of a particular head and neck oncology surgeon there.This doctor has had other patients with oral melanoma and has written articles about it.So,since he had been to 5 doctors previous to this who just gave him antibiotics thinking that his tumor was an abcess. We realized he needed to be in a center that not only deals in cancer but oral melanoma.We received his path reports back today and out of the 32 nodes they removed from his neck 20 of them had mets in them.The report goes on to say that 10 of the nodes were completly taken over by the cancer.My whole point with this is that Joe has expressed that he does not want his quality of life to be diminished if he may only have a short time to live.He would rather enjoy the life that he can have without the devastaing side effects of chemo and radiation.I am torn with all of this because yes,he may have an extented period of life once the treatments are done,but at what cost???In regard to the second opinion,lets put it this way,he filed for SSA&SSI 2 weeks prior to surgery and he's already been approved.It seems they feel after reading all his medical materials that there was no time to waste.I have never seen the government work so fast!!!They call it a "terry case".I asked the medical oncologist when someone was going to explain all this to him.They want to wait until after his out of the hospital.If any of you can think of something I should be doing or if I'm missing a step please let me know.


I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving,
Patty