Hi everyone- Even though this is my first time posting I have been coming to this site since January when my mother was diagnosed with oral cancer. She had a white patch on her gums which she thought may be thrush, it turned into a growth she went to the dentist which told her that she needed to have a deep cleaning. She had that done and nothing improved the growth continued to get larger, she finally was referred to a periodontist who immediately told her to go to the oral surgeon to get a biopsy. The biopsy result show she had squamous Cell Carcinoma and was advised to contact her medical insurance company for referral to head and neck oncology.

She has Kaiser for her insurance so her options were limited were she could go for her treatment. She first meet with the head and neck surgeon who said they would present her case to their tumor board on Monday and would call to let us know their recommendations. They ended up recommending surgery that would include removing the jaw because the tumor had invaded the bone, and then removing a bone,muscle and tissue from her leg and resculpting a new jaw. They also did a neck disection.

She had the surgery on feb 19. The surgery went well and the intial lab results were clear margins. But the next day she had a heart attack while in ICU. She spent two weeks in the hospital to make sure her heart was ok. It test on her heart didn't show any damages and the doctors said it was probably from the stress of her surgery.

She also has a wound on her neck that the stitches came apart due to some radiation she had 40 years ago for Hodgkins. The wound still has not healed all the way.

Anyway the reason I feel we now are so confused is that we met with the radiologist on friday regarding radiation, and they are telling us that are leaving it up to her regarding receiving radiation.

They said she was T4N0MO, grade 1 and they told the chance of reoccurance is about 50% maybe a little less if she opted for no Radiation. If she Received Radiation it would be IMRT 5 days a week for 6 weeks, but she would have to deal with the side effects plus because she has had previous rads to her neck the side effects could be worse, but would cut down the chance of reoccurance in half. Even her surgeon said he didn't know if it was him what he would do.

My mom is terrible about making desisions and keeps asking me what she should do?

Anyone with any advice would be appreciated.

Sorry I wrote so much I thought it would help to know the background.

Sherri