Recurrences when surgical only approaches are done are too common in my humble opinion. The chances of a few remaining malignant cells to still be around and manifest themselves into something visible in a year or two is a story that I hear happen way too often. These micro mets don't show up in the margins which the doctor says are clean. They may be as remote from the surgical site as the cervical nodes, in amounts that are so small that conventional scans can not see them, and they certainly can not be palpated by the doctor's fingers. This is routinely referred to by the doctors as a recurrence, but in my book it is incomplete original treatment. This is why everyone here always talks about getting a team approach of surgery, radiation, and maybe chemo to ensure everything is REALLY gone. If members of your team think you only need surgery and radiation or whatever, you are getting the opinions of doctors from different disciplines, that are COMPLIMENTARY and overlapping. That is where you get the best results. Seeing a single doctor with a single opinion, no matter how experienced he or she is, is not the best idea in my book.

Also no one going through a cancer diagnosis is strong. It is scary no matter how tough you might appear to be on the outside. We are all alike in this respect. But you need to get through the fear, set your mind on the end result when the treatments are over and jump in. This cancer is very unforgiving of half measures