I just wanted to post a brief update on the fly to everyone here who has been so helpful. I spoke again to the radiation oncologist from Dana Farber who has been so incredibly helpful about the risks of radiating only the left side of my neck and he said the risk was too high--very much along the lines of what some of you have said here. It's not that there's a high probability that the cancer would be there and not in the nodes on the left but, if it is, it is quite possible it wouldn't show up on a CT scan and so teh only way of being sure that possibility is treated is to include that side of the enck in the radiation plan. He confirmed what I thought he had said before about how the partid can be spared, at least partially, using IMRT radiation if they have an expert programmer.

So then I called my radiation oncologist here again , he spoke to the radaition oncologist there again, and it looks like I will be able to stay here and have IMRT radiation on both sides of the neck and still have at least 50% of the parotid gland spared from radiation. The setup will be done by someone from Roswell Park who has expertise in IMRT radiation. Also I'll be having Amifostine, which I gather has helped some people here with recovering their salivary function after treatment.

So I'm feeling good about having treatment here right now but also glad I asked about the original plan. I'll be getting the CT scan that lets them do the mapping on Tusday next week, because I had two teeth pulled a couple of days ago and it takes time for the gums to heal and from there it will be a week or maybe week and 1/2 until the first day of radiation (during that time I get a PEG tube put in). By the start of rad., my breast incision, which is now still undergoing wet-to-dry packing to allow it to heal, may be close enough to healed up that I can have the first dose of chemo right on day 1 instead of having a delay......

Thank you all for your responses here. I'm sure I'll be back with lots of questions as I go through treatment.

Nelie