Hi,

I just completed week 5 and have 4 more treatments to go. That's the good news. I should be very happy...

Now the bad:

I've got to start over. Yes, yes, 6 more weeks of radiation, except now I need chemo in addition to the radiation.

My initial treatment plan was to treat my right side only, as I had right side tonsil cancer with a one large right side lymph node without extracapsular spread and negative on the other lymph nodes that were dissected. Because of this, I was spared bilateral radiation because there is only a 0.4% chance of cancer spreading to the other side of the neck.

Monday I had a CT scan which revealed a left side node 1.6 cm and oval shaped with "lumescence". The PET scan on Thurday revealed "uptake" in this lymph node. They are pretty confident it is cancer, based on my history and the diagnostic and clinical results. A biopsy is slated for next week to confirm.

Preliminary plan is to add 6 more weeks of radiation therapy with a platinum based chemotherapy agent every Friday.

As you can expect, I'm disheartened about this. Plus, now I'm worried about my prognosis.

The other bit of good news is that the PET scan only showed this one node as indicative of cancer.

I've read some posts where false-positives are possible with the PET, but these doctors are pretty sure this is cancer. We'll see. I hope that's the case, but at this point, I seriously doubt it.

So, my journey continues on.

Thanks for reading,

Oscar