Enlarged lymph nodes on one side of neck

I was dx with stage IIb in 2005.  I've had some ups and downs, but so far have remained NED.  I did ten tons of treatment: double mastectomies, ooph/hyst, chemo, radiation, Herceptin, AIs then tamoxifen, Zometa.

 In September 2009 I had a giant scare: bad MRI, ultrasound, PET, CT.  (I don't do mammograms because of how much damage I had from radiation.)  I ended up having four very large lymph nodes removed from my neck surgically for biopsy (there were also large/suspicious nodes under my sternum, but their placement made them inoperable).  These nodes were on my non-cancer side - and they were benign.  (HURRAH!)

 A few weeks ago I found more lumps in my neck, not on the scarline,  but in the general area of the previous node removal.  After a week they hadn't gone away, so I went to my (beloved) onc.  She felt them too, but we decided to try a round of antibiotics to see if the nodes would go down.  They didn't.

 So today I went back in, and now I'm set to see a neck surgeon again to discuss removal.  I am concerned about doing further testing because the last time it took a couple of months of torture before the surgery, and I still had to do the surgery.

 My tumor markers are a little higher than before, but well within normal ranges.  The nodes are only on one side, not both.

 Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?  What was the conclusion?  I'm either looking at "nothing" or metastatic disease.  I'm having a hard time staying sane through it all.

Ideas?  Insights?  Anecdotes?

Thanks in advance for your help and support.