Hi Shelley,

We have been going to USC Norris for about 5 years. Overall we are happy with the the doctors and Norris as they have taken good care of us. We also have a support group (www.hncsupport.org) at Norris which meets the first Saturday of the month and which we have attended for the last several years and find helpful.

We have decided on the biopsy.

I read your other posts and I was very happy to hear that in Ron's case the doctor feels that it may be an infection which is great news indeed.

Best of luck to you and Ron also.

Vin

Teresa,

Thank you for the encouragement and help. We have decided to do the biopsy. I was happy to see that we made the right decision as everyone who responded feels the same.

My appreciation to this great forum.

I will post after we get the results.

Vin

Sorry I never posted. The biopsy result was negative and we were very very happy about that. We are experiencing a new problem.
My wife has been having pain in the right jaw. The cancer was on the left lateral oral tongue.

We saw her dentist in mid July who took x-rays and did not find anything abnormal. We thought it could have been a tooth problem. He prescribed penicillin. Right after, we saw her ENT and he said to take the penicillin. The pain went away.

She stopped taking the penicillin because we travelled to Europe on July 19th to celebrate her 5-five anniversary of the completion of the treatments. One week after we were in Europe the pain came back and the right side of the face was swollen. She started taking the penicillin again and the pain went away again along with the swelling.

When we got back from Europe we saw her ENT asap, which was the first week of August. He felt that she may have gotten de-hydrated in Europe which caused the pain to come back. Also he felt that there may be a stone present as a result to the radiation she had five years ago. I never heard of stones forming as a result of radiation.

I would appreciate any help with this.

Thank you.