To #1982 from #1983. Hope you both can try to stay positive! Good vibes and prayers. Amy

If he does have a reoccurrance it is not a death sentence!! I had a reoccurrance last June of 04.
It had returned in the original surgical bed. (right tonsil, stage 4) with mets to both lungs. They called it multiple nodules in my lungs. I already had the surgery and IMRT radiation. My only option was chemo. I started the chemo in late June of 04. (Carboplatin & Taxol)
Six months later in late December I had another mri and a cat scan. They showed my lungs were clear and there had been no change in my throat.
"Ya Gotta Believe"
I am coming up on two years since dx and feel surprised to have survived as long as I have. I plan on being around a long time posting on this wonderful forum. Offering advice when I can and support when needed. I honestly believe this website saved me from going bonkers about the whole process. Being able to access so many members and get advice and support empowered me. Education about oral cancer will ease his anxiety about the unknown.

Tell Jerry he is now a member of one HUGE international cyber family. It is a tight band of brothers that support and love each other. I feel blessed to have found this website prior to my trearment.

Tell Jery for me that he can still beat this. There are many who have relasped more than once and are still around to talk about it.

All my best, Danny Boy

Thanks for sharing your story, Danny. And congratulations on beating this disease. That gives us both hope. Fear is definitely the enemy, and we're really working on getting the right attitude back. I'm getting a lot closer with the support I find here and through our friends. I think Jerry is starting to come around. He resorted to Xanax yesterday and last night to calm down. He was even talking about trying an antidepressant. He hadn't felt he needed it all the months before this, but just this bit of unverified 'news' really put him over the edge. We're going for his cat scan this morning, but he can't get the biopsy until Tuesday. It still seems strange that it could be back so soon when they got all the cancer (T1) and clean margins in just Feb, gave him an extra boost of radiation in that area with the IMRT treatment which just ended on May 9th. Maybe it is just an unhealed spot? We're hoping, but if not, I see now that it can still be treated successfully.

I am just a few weeks behind your Jerry in terms of treatment--Friday will make 4 weeks since the end of radiation for me. When I read the results of your meeting with the RO it scared me pretty badly because it IS hard to think cancer could come back so soon (and I've been fearful of recurrence anyway--as I guess everyone is-- since treatment ended).

But I've benefitted from reading people's comforting responses to you. Its clear no matter what happens there is hope. Still, I really hope for you and Jerry that this is not cancer but just a spot that hasn't yet healed. My warmest thoughts are with you during the wait to find out.

Thanks Nelie. I didn't mean to scare anyone else unnecessarily, and I'm sorry if my post did that to you. My husband's situation is unique to him, and we won't know until next week what is really happening here. Our best wishes are with you as you continue to heal and recover. Thanks to everyone for your words of support. It's been very helpful. The cat scan is done, and we're going to do our best to put this out of our minds over the long weekend.

Of course you didn't mean to scare me. Please don't worry about that. The fact is, I'm easily scared these days and I just need to learn to cope with my fears and go on working towards recovery. The fact is, no one knows what's going to happen to them tommorrow on terms of this disease once you'be been diagnosed. All you can do is fight the good fight which I have managed to do so far.

I truly hate the disease and I hate that any of us have reason to be scared by it, especially fater going through such a demanding treatment as radiation is, but I'm very grateful for this community even when it reminds me of possibilities I'd rather not think about too much.

We saw Jerry's surgeon today. She is not the type to pull any punches or make anything seem better than it is. And, Good News so far! Nothing showed up on the cat scan. She said the 'spot' looked no different to her than it did the week before last. She said she was pretty optimistic that it was not cancer and that instead it was a spot that was dead tissue that was not healing. The 'spot' is both where the primary tumor was removed and where they blasted it with extra radiation during IMRT. She said she has had 4 other recent patients with the same problem and when she did a biopsy, they were cancer-free and had a non-healing spot instead. She will do a surgical biopsy on Jerry at Moffit on Friday morning at 10am. If all is good, then she will order hyperbaric oxygen treatment for the 'spot'. This basically amounts to him breathing oxygen in a special oxygen chamber for X minutes for a number of sessions and causes the non-healing skin to heal. She says she has seen excellent results from it. She said her gut feeling was that it was not cancer. Thank God! We are so relieved! (and the surgeon was actually in a good mood and very nice today.)

Then, we managed to get an appointment over with his acupuncturist, and she treated Jerry for anxiety and stomach distress. Within an hour, his voice had improved significantly, his stomach felt 75% better, and he was feeling much calmer. I'm sure some of this was due to the good news with the surgeon, but regardless, the results were impressive today. Turns out she had been treating him for anxiety and digestive problems since the week before radiation began and had stopped doing this two weeks ago (the week before he lost his appetite and became so anxious.) I guess I had always thought she had mainly been treating him for pain.

I am happy for your good news! Perhaps your ENT read my earlier post?

cclark, I'm very happy for the positive news from the surgeon for Jerry and you. As I mentioned in my own post, I still have a couple of very raw spots in my mouth and I'm hoping they are also spots that have yet to heal. I hope you'll come back and let us know how the hyperbaric oxygen treatment works.

Nelie

Nelie, I'll come back and post after he gets the biopsy results and gets started with the hyperbaric oxygen treatment. And Mark, you were right on the mark. Wish the radiation oncologist had been as savvy.