Just to say hello,
I was told i had HPV of the throat last Friday and am going in for a surgery this Wednesday coming. He thinks it started on my left tonsil and jumped onto my lymph node. He may remove the tonsil and any thing else he can get to while he is in there, he will enter thru the mouth. Has anyone else had this procedure ? how did it go? He also said that i will most likely have chemo and radio after.
It all started a few months ago when I noticed a swelling on my neck, one day it was just there. went to my GP and he referred me to ent for and examination, the specialist then sent me for an ultra sound and biopsy and then last week I am told this. My feet have not touched the ground it has all been so fast.
I am in no pain, have no symptoms, I recently passed a divers medical (had the lump at the time) I scuba dive, cycle and run, all that I have is this lump no bigger than the nail bed of my thumb on my neck. I am finding it hard to process to be honest.
When I went for the pre-op the nurse told me that it would be up to 6 weeks before the test results come back from the tissue that he will remove. 6 weeks! really .. is this normal? He also mentioned a CT scan on my neck, I assumed that would of been before surgery, guess not.
My wife is fantastic and keeping us strong and positive. oh by the way, my surgery is on our 21st wedding anniversary, which we take to be a good sign as it is a day of love and happiness.
Hello Darkwaterdiver
its a scary time but you have found the right place to advice and support. The 6 weeks sounds an horrendous length of time but they do have to be sure of the exact diagnosis so that they can tailor the correct treatment for you. By the time my husband was told that he had cancer it was too late to have his tonsils out as it had spread to his lymph node and his soft palate, so we have no knowledge of this side of it but I’m sure someone else will come on and answer you.
a few valuable tips picked up from others on here
- stay off Google, ask your questions on here to people who have gone through what you are experiencing
- take someone with you to your appointments as two pairs of ears are better than one
- get a notepad, write down all of your questions and when you ask them at your meeting, out the answers down straight away (I became my husband’s secretary 
) because you will all out of the room and forget what was said.
Keep us updated and try to stay strong
Sheilagh
I suspect (though I'm just going on other cases and my own) that the surgery through the mouth will just be a first step, probably just day case? If it's spread to your nodes then you'll most likely need a neck dissection to some degree which is a bit more invasive and will involve a hospital stay. Certainly for me I had the tonsil thing done as well as a tongue biopsy in a day but then the dissection to remove nodes was a five day stay, I think if you have confirmed node metastasises that's pretty much inevitable; but it's no big deal, it was (as my consultant told me at the time), "the easy part".
The no pain no symptoms is exactly how it was for me, my GP visit was for something else and I only mentioned the neck lump in passing. Six weeks sounds a crazy amount of time, I'm sure it'll happen quicker than that. Scans may well come thick and fast, I had PT, MRI and PET-CT in quick succession although none of them found my "primary".
Radio and Chemo is the tough yards but it's doable as many of us on here can testify, and you sound like you're in better shape physically to cope with it than most. Good luck with everything and keep coming back when you need to, most experiences you're likely to encounter will have been tackled by someone on here.
Metastatic SCC diagnosed 8th October 2013. Modified radical neck dissection November, thirty-five radiotherapy fractions with 2xCisplatin chemo Jan/Feb 2014. Recurrence on larynx diagnosed July 2020 so salvage laryngectomy in September 2020.
