But after a few minutes of listening to the doctor's explanation I began to think about it this way:

If there was no residual cancer found when they did a biopsy of my lymph glands then we know that the chemotherapy and chemo-radiation did a complete job of ridding me of cancer. My glass was half full.

Then again, if when they did the biopsy they found some residual cancer--cancer that had withstood the previous treatments--then it was good to have the surgery because that tough cancer could easily spread to other parts of my body if it was not surgically removed. Yet another half full glass.

Anyway you look at it...I walked away from the surgery with a full glass.

The surgery itself can take quite a long time. In my case, I was on the table for 4 1/2 hours. The resulting after-effects of the anesthesia really took their toll. Here are some of the side effects and outcomes from my surgery:

        I was extremely hostile when I woke up in the recovery room...so much so that the anesthesiologist thought I was going to take a swing at him.

        The surgeon removed roughly a pound of lymph glands, veins, muscle and nerve tissues from my neck. (The important thing is that the nerve that controls the overhead movement of my arm is still in tact.)

        My skin from the center line of my neck to roughly 2" behind my ear and from just above my left nipple to 3" above my ear is numb.  Over time the nerves may reroute their signals and leave me with an area of numbness the size of my hand.  But after six years, I still have numbness in that area although I have complete mobility and have even gone rock climbing.

        I had to go on a low-fat diet for a week after my surgery in an effort to minimize the output from my remaining lymph glands that might otherwise have caused swelling in my neck. (Yup, I lost even more weight.)

That's the scar just 7 days after my operation (you wouldn't want to look at it one day after the operation).  It ran from just below my left ear to just beyond the midline of my neck. And the other scar runs from just above my collar bone to just below my ear. (BTW, those shiny spots are the stainless steel staples that my surgeon used to hold my skin together. They make look Frankensteinesque but they work better than any other kind of suture on skin that's been irradiated. I saw the scar of a man who had this same surgery and after just 8 months I could hardly see it.)

        I significantly increased the amount of pain killers in the weeks immediately after my surgery. (Don't forget that I was still dealing with the pain from the chemo-radiation when I went into surgery and in addition to the pain from the incision, I had the same jabbing pain that one gets with a torn rotator cuff.)

        My physical therapy necessitated daily exercises beginning two weeks after my surgery to bring back to flexibility to my neck and strength to my arm. I/m

        Nearly 2 dozen biopsies were done on the lymph nodes and muscle tissue removed from my neck. No cancer was found in any of them.

On a closing note let me say that I wasn't really prepared to feel quite as bad as I did after this surgery. While I received great medical care this surgery was really tough on my body and mind. But it's amazing to see how quickly my body recovered and within 48 hours I was roaming the halls of the hospital after starting to eat regular food the morning after my surgery.

Would I do it again? The good news is that I'll never have to do it again because all of the lymph glands have been removed. Prior to the surgery there was that small questionable mass left in my neck and my medical team really helped me make an informed decision about the risks and rewards of having the surgery. In retrospect, I'm glad I did it because I don't have to wonder about that little lump.