Hello all, was wondering if anyone out there has undergone radiation twice?

Here's my situation: I was treated with IMRT radiation in December and January as a follow-up to my tongue surgery. At that time, I had not had a neck dissection and a PET/CT fusion scan taken right before I started radiation showed no "suspicious" activity anywhere, including where they had just done the tongue surgery 5 weeks earlier (ahh, the good ol days)...

Anyway, I did have a recurrence in a lymph node that fell right below the radiation field (i.e. in an area that didn't get blasted by the IMRT). I had a neck dissection about 10 days ago to take care of that, and after I heal up from that they are talking about doing general beam radiation in the lower neck, upper chest areas...

There would be some overlap, which makes me curious why they wouldn't do IMRT again to avoid that. But they said IMRT wouldn't be necessary because no key structures would need to be spared this time around (esophogus, mouth, saliva glands, etc). I'm assuming that it won't be quite as tough as the first time since they won't be shooting my mouth but who knows?

They said the biggest problems could be that parts of my caratoid artery get a second dose (could be problems 10-25 years down the line, but if I'm dealing with that then it means I beat the cancer!)... They also said any overlap areas could be stiff and skin could have some significant scarring...

Anyway, just curious if anyone has been down this road before (i.e. repeat radiation)...

It makes me wonder why they didn't radiate this part of my neck to begin with but I guess that's a moot point now... And to think, at one point I was 50-50 on even needing radiation according to the docs and typical protocol... now I may be among those who get to use their masks twice!! acckk!!

(on an unrelated note, I went back to work today for the first time since my neck dissection. It felt good to be Eric the sports editor for awhile rather than Eric the cancer patient)...