Sorry I have been so long getting back on here. Many of you encouraged me to go to a cancer center and I finally decided I had to for peace of mind. I went to the MD Anderson cancer center in Houston last month. To make a long story short, they backed up everything my dr here had done and told me that I was doing everything I should to help myself which really made me feel good. I have managed to loose 85 pounds and feel so much better for it. They did find 3 suspect lymph nodes which scared me to death, but they done needle biopsies on each one and they weren't cancer which was such a relief... Just was in shock when they told me I needed to stay another day and check them.. Pure hell waiting in the motel that night for the tests the next day.. Thank god, it was ok. So, I am back to just watching close and seeing my dr every month for a while at least. The dr at Houston did tell me that since I didn't smoke, drink or chew, this was just a genetic thing..I have an aunt that has sent me an article about a soaps actress that has had oral cancer and the article says there is a connection with HPV virus ( I think that is what it was called. Has anyone ever heard of this.. It looks like MD Anderson would have known about this. The dr there wasn't very enthused about these kind of forums... I didn't say much other than if it were him who had this awful thing going on, he might feel a need to talk to others in the same boat too. Goes to show you, dr may be intelligent, but still people just don't know how this feels until it is you.. then it is a different story.. Anyway, just wanted to thank everyone for their words of encouragement and hopefully we can all give each other that little bit of encourgement we just have to hear some days.. Hang in there everyone...