Don't worry to much Dee.  I had pretty much same thing except they never found my primary but they knew it came from somewhere in my mouth throat.  They just hit everything from my ears down to collar bones with radiation as well as chemo.   I'm a year out next month, and so far so good.   I had 35 rad treatments and 7 cisplatin.   It is  pretty rough to get through but I made it without any hospital stays and I hardly used the feeding tube they fitted in my stomach except for the last week of rad, and for about a week after.   My saliva production is less but I don't suffer from dry mouth except for when I wake up, probably from having my mouth open while sleep.  And apart from that it's just when I eat dry food like crackers or bread with no marg  and things.   The surgery to remove the lymph node cancer is not as successful as the radiation and chemo combo,  and they can't just take the nodes they find cancer on in the scans, because small clusters of cells don't show on the scans and so they have to take all the lymph nodes and a bunch of the tissue around them........this also has side affects, and usually end up having the radiation and chemo anyway to clean up anything missed by the surgery.    You'll hear about a whole lot of nightmare late onset side affects that can come on as much as 10 years after radiation.........not everybody gets them, and most people who do get them don't get all of them, and much can be done to minimize them as well.   In any case it is far better then the alternative.   Stay strong, think positive, and when the going gets rough,  just keep telling yourself, this is temporary......it will be over soon.   xo ... View more