Hi. I'm new here and newly diagnosed. I hope I don't make this to long but I need to give all the info so I can see if anyone has had this situation and may be able to give me a little advice. I was shaving one day and noticed the left side of my neck was a little swollen. Just under and forward of my ear. I went to the dr. about it and he said he thought it was a lymphnode swollen. He ran me through a script of penicillin, did blood work (which was normal), and sent me to an ENT, After a couple of visits and the node continuing to he did a biopsy with a needle. It came back neg. The node was still swelling so he scheduled surgery to remove the node. It was removed on 12-26-06. My neck swelled quite a bit after the surgery. He had told my wife that the node was golfball sized and really imbedded in my neck and he had some problems with a bleeding vein/ artery? I was kind of worried that it was bleeding becaause my neck was really swelling so I went to see him on 12-29. He said he thought that maybe it had bled a little and might be getting a little infected so he gave me an antibiotic then told me the path results came back on 12-28 and it showed mestatic squamous cell carcinoma. This suprised me because the first bio was neg. and he had told my wife that the node was full of infection and he felt that was the problem. He then told me we would schedule surgery for an adenotonsilletomy and panendoscopy. I said ok. I went back to the emergency room on 12-30 becouse my neck was really swelling and he came in and agreed that I might have a bleeder. He then said that if he had to repair the bleeder that he would already be making a large incision and we might as well do a radical neck dissection. After he described this to me I spoke to my wife and told him to just fix the bleeding and let us pray about this first. I went through the surgery, no bleeding just really swollen tissue. He took out another swollen node and I'm to see him on Jan 3. I am really confused because some people say we shouldn't be cutting out so much without doing some other tests first to try to find the primary site. I'm also concerned that he hasn't involved or had me involve more dr.s i.e. an oncologist, my MS neuro ect. Me and my family are trying to find some answers or expirience to how this should be going or what we need to do. I know nothing about this process but I read a little about stages and considering it being in my nodes I assume that puts it around stage 3. I'm 33 with a wonderful wife and beautiful 18 month old son and I just want to fight this agressively so I can get back to my responsibilities. I'm sorry this is so long but I'm realy confused and hope someone can help me out. Tahnk you and my prayers are with you. Lee