I had an appt. with my ENT a couple of days ago and instead of scheduling another appt. for a month from now, he said to make the next appt. in two months. I was a little surprised by that as I had thought he had said he would see me every month for the first 6 months but I'm also seeing my RO for followups and have another appt. with him in 3 weeks so I figure between the two I am getting seen every month.

My question is, what should I expect my ENT to be doing to do a really thorough check for cancer at these visits and when should I expect he will start doing these things? I am just three weeks past the end of radiation (in my 4th post-rad week) and still am struggling with phelgm and mouth sores from mucositis.

I'm more scared I suppose by reading elsewhere of someone having a possible recurrence only 8 weeks out of rad. At my appointment, my ENT noted I had two patches in my mouth, one below my tongue near where the original tumor was and one above my throat that are red and irritated looking but that he "didn't see anything that looks like cancer".

I assume the red patch above my throat is mainly remianing irritated because I have been vomiting almost every day since rad treatment began either from chemo, amifostine or (lately) phlegm that gets caught in my thorat and makes me gag). As for the lower tongue, I thought that was raw because it was the focus of the radiation. The RO hasn't made any comments about it looking unusually irritated. But I couldn't tell if the ENT thought these might be patches of dysplasia that needed to be watched or why else he would have made that comment. He didn't seem to think any action on anything was needed at the moment.

I mentioned to him I was scared of a recurrence and he said "well you should be. you had a very aggressive form of cancer". but didn't explain to me what he'd do to try to catch a recurrence. Not very reassuring. (His bedside manner is not the best many times)

Anyway, he did an visual exam of my mouth and felt my neck but didn't look down my throat with a scope. He has actually never scoped me in an office visit, only when I've been in surgery. Shouldn't that be part of a follow-up exam in the future? I know that in September he wants to do a PET scan or MRI to get a baseline and that he has mentioned he'll run checks on my thyroid every now and then but I'm not clear on how important the scoping part is.

He is not an ENT specializing in head and neck cancer, although I know he has treated other cancer patients in the area. He's a good surgeon and seems to know his stuff about oral cancer in general. He's the one who suggested I get a second opinion when the first RO at the hosptial said I didn't need radiation and the reasons he gave for why he thought I DID need rad were right on the money--the same as what the specialists at Dana Farber ended up saying--so i trust his knowledge. But much of his business is kids who need ear tubes. I'm just concerned that i get a really thorough and good follow-up exam from him and that he's doing everything that needs to be done to do a really thorough check for possible recurrences.