Hi Meg -

I'm so sorry about your mom....it's a tough decision no matter which direction you choose. My husband had stage IV squamous cell in his tongue, floor of mouth, and jawbone, and died last month following a lot of treatment that was agonizing for him, but he wanted to give it every possible shot he could. He had the feeding tube, all recommended treatment, and followed all of the protocol except that none of it worked. As others have said, it is very aggressive stuff, and if left untreated, it will rapidly spread into the surrounding tissue. My husband's spread from the original areas into the face and neck areas, and he was gone within 8 weeks. And yes, that last 8 weeks was painful for both him and me. I had posted a question under the "introduce yourself" section around the third week of March of this year that details some of the things we went through, so if you're interested, you may want to look there. Or, you can send me a 'private message' and I can tell you what it was like for my husband. There's a lot that doctors don't tell you about, or if they do, it's very general.

Bless your heart, Meg, I'll be thinking about you.

Judy