I'm now three years past the end of treatment and my radiation oncologist wants to continue seeing me every six months, as she's done over the past two years. First year after treatment, she saw me every 3 months.

When I asked her about these visits, she said that one of the things that she was keeping an eye out for was osteoradionecrosis, that is death of the jaw bone, which can be an after effect of radiation. While this is more common with those patients who receive 66 Gy doses or more, she said, it is not uncommon at lower doses and she wants to catch this, should it occur, as quickly as possible.

Like Eileen, I feel like the more trained people looking in my mouth improves the chances of catching a recurrence or post-treatment complication quickly.

I have to drive about 200 miles to my appointments and it seems like there must be some bylaw that my ENT and RO can't have office hours on the same days of the week, which doubles the travel time. Nonetheless, these regular follow ups provide a sense of doing all I can to avoid a recurrence. - Sheldon