Hi the and welcome to the forum

first and foremost let me tell you that I am now 3 years post treatment for a secondary cancer that showed up in my right neck lymph node ... and I'm doing well

when I had my biopsy on my neck lump, I was told it was a secondary and investigations began to find the primary

from the biopsy they knew it was a tongue based cancer so knew the routes that this cancer takes so knew what to look for

i initially had an exploriritory that went all the way down the trophy to the stomach ... for some reason they gave me a tonsillectomy too ... but I had had them out when I was 8 .... I was 52 when I went through this in 2014

nothing was found so I had a ct from the head to the waist ... nothing was found

then I had a PET-ct which is a molecular scan ... nothing was found

there was a hint of something in my stomach lining but they think it was just irritation of the cancer cells in my throat

eventually no primary was found

i talk to a lot of people on here and it's quite a normal occurrence 

you are at the stage where you have a diagnosis but not a prognosis and this just takes a bit of time before you get all the answers

i was lucky I had an excellent team at my local hospital which did the following

diagnosed on a Monday at 12:35 pm April 28th 2014 ( a date I will always remember)

pre op on tuesday

exploritory on wednesday

ct scan on thursday

was told I will live on Friday , cut further tests needed to be done to find the primary

it was not until about the end of May that all testing had been completed, nothing was found and so we went forward with my treatment plan, that started on July 8th 2014

i hope this had given you some insight as to a probable timeline and next steps

i wrote a blog throughout my treatment which documents everything I want through ... it might be of help you you and your dad once you get close to your treatment plan

i hope I have been of some help

please ask whatever you want as I am sure you have loads of questions

vatch