Hi Jen,

Welcome to our little corner of the world!!!
I was treated with IMRT after having the tumor removed from my right tonsil. They were unable to remove it all due to location on carthoid artery. The follow up radiation process for me was painless. I had no side effects from it at all. If you read some of the older post's this is rare.
I had a reoccurance last June and started receiving chemo (Taxol & Carboplatin) in late June. I had a port inserted under my skin in my upper left side chest. No more poking with needles for blood draws or infusion of chemo drugs. One little pick and thats it. Ask your medical on'gist about having one installed. Several people have them where I'm being treated.
I hope you sail through the treatmets and have nothing but good news to report. It's by no means a walk in the park but many of us have walked the path ahead of you and are still around to talk about it.

Best Wishes, Danny Boy

If people relied on their doctors for the best courses of treatment there would be no need for this forum. We could just blindly accept whatever is put on our plate and the wide range of conequences as a result. I take the "patient advocate" thing seriously. We have many examples here of inaccurate and late diagnosis (I for one), inadequate, and sometimes fatal treatment plans. My mission has always been to promote patient self advocacy, period. To equip people with sufficient knowledge to, at the least, open up a dialog with their physicians and have some assurance that the best and most state of the art tools are being used in their fight. It has never been my intention to "sell people pipe dreams of reduced side effects in spite of the obvious..." (obvious what by the way?) Or to advocate a particular treatment modality.

My head & neck surgeon had me originally scheduled me for XRT. In literally the 11th hour, I convinced him to re-write the Tx order for IMRT (based on my industry insider knowledge and many sleepless hours of internet research), in spite of the fact that he went to medical school at UCSFCCC, he had NO knowledge of IMRT. I had to educate the doctor -and he is a very fine doctor. I didn't say this to promote IMRT, only to state the not so obvious that not all doctors are current in their knowledge of the latest advances in treatment. It just so happened that I was a perfect candidate for IMRT and NOT ALL ARE, but it doesn't hurt to ask the question now does it? In fact I have had regrets that I didn't have PBT instead, truth be known.

And your comment about "...assuming newer is always better". The NCCN oncology practice guidelines always recommend seeking a clinical trial whenever possible. This is not meant to slam 3DCRT. After all you are being treated at MSKCCC which is perhaps the best cancer center in the world. If I were in your shoes I would probably trust what the doctors are telling me. But for many here they don't or won't access MSKCCC or UCSFCCC or MD AndersonCCC, etc. and they need to know what is out there.

And about the smoking thing, I am not going to sugar coat this. I personally feel that people who use tobacco products, particularly after a brush with cancer are idiots (and yes I too was one of those idiots until I witnessed, up close and personal, people dying while working for Siemens linear accelerator division back in the 70's. I also have some serious bias since it also claimed my sister (at age 47) and my stepmother.

So flame away. I didn't sleep well last night and I'm a little grumpy today.

The obvious? That there is no easy way to treat this cancer. I don't write very well, sorry. I do wish you didn't seem so mad at me, I have always considered us friends.

Glenn

Gary and Glenn,
Both of you are vital parts of this board, what make it so important. You both also have very direct ways of posting, you state things in a bold way that come across as bold. Some, including both of you, take it the wrong way at times. It's human nature, it won't ever change, it will blow over.
Gary, are you still grumpy??

Minnie,

It already blew over, Gary said he was sorry for being so grumpy and promised to stop picking on me all the time.

Thanks,
Glenn

Nah - But I still think that people who use tobacco products are idiots!

Glenn & I had a little intellectual fun and we have already kissed and made up (figuratively speaking of course). He is, after all, one of New Yorks finest and I hope that we can meet up at the next OCF reunion.

Sorry, but I can't help butting in now. I once read a study regarding men and women debating. In the case of women either being debated by men or women, they felt when they were slammed or beat in the debate, they said they would rather never have anything to do with the opponent again. In the case of the men, when they were stomped by an opponent they had a desire to go have a beer with them and pat them on the back.

Now, for the folks outside of the "ring", if you are women, remember Gary and Glen are just trying to bond across great geographical boundaries. If you are men, find a way to get close to them and buy them a beer!

I once had a boss that made me send him all my emails before anyone else could see them. Then, he had me read them in front of him. The excercise made me realize when it was good to send a limited, unemotional contextual missive to someone versus picking up the phone to avoid misperception. Best advice I ever had.

I sure appreciate all that you, Gary and Glen, contribute and especially the differences in viewpoints.

Ed

I believe The truth is Gary and Glenn are the same person. :p

I knew you couldn't resist this one.

Way to go Mark. I love it. Eileen