I had a FNA by an ENT which was the 4th doctor I had been to. He told me that he would put a rush on it implying he had "connections". Eleven days later, after about 10 phone calls on my part and 2 weekends I got a phone call from his nurse who said the doc wanted to see me at 3pm that day which was rainy Monday. I knew that was bad because his office closed at 2pm.

I arrived early and didn't get to see him until 3:30. I was sitting in his exam chair and he was sitting on this little stool. Please understand that I was a health and exercise nut and had never been sick a day in my life other than a yearly cold. He proceeded to tell me that I had a Stage IV cancer in my lymph nodes and that he was going to do a radical neck dissection where he would cut me from my ear to my shoulder and take out all my lymph nodes, nerves, muscle and veins. My neck would be sunken in and my skin would be hard and to make his point he knocked his knuckles on his desk to make a descriptive THUD sound. He continued to say that my shoulder would droop and my neck would hurt for the rest of my life. He said THEN he was going to give me chemo and 7 weeks of radiation. To top it off he said after all of that he only gave me a 50 to 60 % chance of surviving 5 years. All of this took less than 2 minutes time.

About that time I felt my face get real hot starting from my shoulders and it moved up my face really fast. The next thing I remember is waking up to hear him say, "you fainted". I started to ask a million questions and he finally said, "so I gather you want to get another opinion." I said to myself...YOU THINK!!!

Even though I call him Dr Death to this day, he was the one that got me in to see his friend (Chief of Oral Surgery) at Moffitt the very next day and the rest is history. So I kinda of love him and hate him at the same time.