Dave had his visit with the initial surgeon that we went to see.
The MD was very pleased with the results in terms of the tumor on the tongue and 2 of the three nodes they were keeping an eye on.

There is one node (the one closest to the tumor) that he expressed some concern about. He said that we would wait to see what happened at the PET in Aug(everyone there has been positive about his response with the reminder that we really need the PET to be sure and that has to wait because of false positive ratio).
He did say if something needed to be done it would be a simple(not sure if that was the word but that was what I took away) procedure.

Of course my first reaction was to skip away from all the good stuff he just said and focus on that. Fortunately, my brain kicked in and I did not ask a million questions and focus Dave in that direction but kept the focus on the good stuff.
Not that he didn't hear it but his MO is to wait to deal till you know what you are dealing with.
The MD was casual about it. Not in an insensitive way but in a confident way if that makes sense.
The message I came away with was it would have obviously been nicer to not have to do it but if it's contained in that node it's not difficult to go in and remove it. And that this is not unusual.

Here's where my brain first went. The surgeon sees so much of this that he has already decided that the node is still a problem:
I did smack my brain and tell it to chill. That worked about 80 percent. Here's what the 20 percent would like to know.


Can the radiation still be working two weeks post treatment or has it pretty much done it's thing(I know it works after but this far after???).

What are people's experience with getting a node out?

Hey Sue! They actually took all of my sisters nodes out on the right side. She is swollen since it was a few days ago but she is doing well. The surgeon we are working with is aggressive but that is what she wanted. Her Path report should be in next week to let us know if the cancer was in them. Her tumor was pretty big on her tongue so he decided to take them out. I will keep you posted on her path because when she took her Pet scan she had 2 nodes swollen but not postive for cancer. Hope Dave is healing well!!!