I'm a little bit calmer now, thanks be to you people. My earlier posts explained my diangosis via the local ENT guy that gave us films, set us up to a cancer center in Denver, and the whole "I'm sorry" routine. So the shock part has kind of worn off. Going from being healthy and planning out the new year to the "year has already gone down the crapper" phase.

The only doctor I haven't met yet is the chemo oncologoist which is tomorrow. My radiation doctor was a long appointment last week, and my confusion at this point is "What type of radiation?" Little did I know that there were several different types. Both my spouse and I have been reading about IMRT radiation. Not once was the word IMRT brought up.

Since we needed to go in for a CTscan and simuluation today (I now have a mesh mask) I asked about this. They told me what I'm down for isn't IMRT but a "three dimensional" radiation treatment. I asked about the difference and was told that IMRT was used for small tumors and was more precise.

I'm trying to give my medical team every benefit of the doubt, but wanted to ask you folks anyway if I should be worried. Granted at stage IV, I don't have time to waste in getting second opinions.

All this stuff is so new to me and overwhelming,that if we weren't educating ourselves on the internet we wouldn't even have the vocabulary to ask the questions.

Jen