Laura, Do you have a primary care doctor who you could call about getting someting for your anxiety? Perhaps the ENT isn't the best person to write a scrip for that.

Also, yes, that spray can irritate your mouth I think, so it's very possible your irritation is from that. It sounds to me like your doc is just being extra cautious in doing a biopsy, especially without giving it a couple of weeks to see if it goes away. From what you have said, I would not assume it is likely to be cancer.

For every surgery where I have to be intubated, since radaition, I have had fiberoptic intubation because I have pretty bad trismus (jaw mobility) too. If they give you the right drugs beforehand, that numb the area where they will be sliding the tube down, and enough drugs that you are pretty well zoinked even though not totally out as they do it, then it is no big deal. Try not to worry about it.

All in all, do whatever you can to take care of yourself and relax yourself this weekend. Sounds like you've had a super-stressful year and anything you can do to not add stress from worrying about this, probably needlessly, would be good for you--whether it's involving yourself with something with your family, doing a craft, watching a movie, or taking a good long walk.

I haven't been through exactly this but I have had recurrence scares--for both my breast cancer and my tongue cancer--since finishing treatment 2 years ago. So I do know how scary it can feel. And I also know that in both cases, they were false alarms and even if they hadn't been, worrying about the results really didn't help anything!

Nelie