David,

My cancer started on the right underside of my tongue. The first surgery was to remove that, and the cancer was very noticibly back less than six weeks later. That's when my first ENT surgeon gave up on me and sent me to the local RO, who said I was too far gone for them to handle here. Thank the Lord he knew my RO at Shands and got me in to see him and his team 3 days later.

By the time of surgery #2 it had spread to the floor of my mouth and into the upper portion of my jaw, and when rad/chemo started 4 weeks later I had two very large lumps in my neck - one on each side. It was moving incredibly fast, and moving south.

I already had a history of bad/weak/vulnerable lungs with a lot of scarring, and they already were showing troubling signs. I believe the upper portions of them were included along with my trachea & esophogus, etc.

I only joined this site a little over a month ago and have many questions now for my RO that I didn't even know to wonder or ask about then. I do NOT question anything he did, but I just can't answer some questions others here might ask me and I am now curious about. I trusted him completely and was right to do so, but I was so incredibly terrified and got so very sick that a lot of that time is somewhat of a blur to me.

Lani