Hi, July 01 my non smoker hubby had enlarged nodes in his neck, no other symptoms, had a biopsy that showed Squamous Cell in one node but not the others (after surgical biopsy it was found in ALL 3 of them) He didnt' know he had tonsil cancer until surgical biopsy, it was growing into his neck.
We had a very blunt surgeon and Onco. Told he had a 20% chance of survival in 5 years with radiation/chemo alone, and 50% with surgery then rad and chemo..............
He was only 39 so we took the safe route. The surgery took out all the cancer that could be seen, so he was cancer free (so they say) but radiation/chemo gets (hopefully) all that you can't see. That is how they put it to us.
He didn't want to go through all the treatments just to have to have the surgery anyways if it didn't shrink the tumors enough.
Good Luck, Our surgeon was worried because Dans tumor (node) was too close to the carotid atery and if it was wrapped around it, well that wouldn't be good, he was able to peel the tumor off the artery thank goodness.
Sometimes to me too many options are not good either, always worried if you made the right one.
So many on this board have had the same type of cancer, but everyones nodes, actual tumor on the tonsil have been different, so every treatment will be too.