Welcome, Bee. I agree that the tremendous amount of information available on this site can be confusing at first. Prefacing this with the fact that every case is different, I had a later stage tumor in my mouth and involved nodes. I had rather aggressive surgery first, followed by radation and concurrent chemo. That was four years ago and I am fine, and have been for a long time. There are similar stories of people who had just radiation and chemo. In my case, given a choice, I wanted the tumor and enlarged nodes OUT. I figured, on a very simple level, that any cells not removed by the surgery would be mopped up by the rad and chemo, which seems to be how it worked in my case. It is felt that the best recommendations come from a panel of experts who discuss the particular case - a surgeon, a radiation oncologist, and a chemo oncologist. I hope this helps a bit. I am sure you will receive many more responses. Bottom line, I think the most important thing is to begin treatment as soon as possible.