Hi, I'm sorry to hear ur story. My cousin had a tumor on hus tongue bout 12 yrs ago now , they opened him up down his chin & a bit below , opened his bottem jaw in haf & took it out this way. He was told he would never speak again & would need to learn sign language. Horrible to hear I no. But 12 yrs later he's fine. Apart from the scar down his chin. & slurs his speech a bit ,(was worse at the start but barley noticible now.. yes he did spk again & lost half his tongue but recovered fully to live a normal life :). Hoping & preying for u . Xx

So sorry to hear about your tongue cancer.   If it helps then I am a tongue cancer servivor.  i had a lump on my  tougue and was removed ten years ago.   I was devasted because after cutting the tip of my tongue I could not pronounce the words properly for two years and felt my world was coming to an end.   I did not give up so soon after after the surgery when I got enough strength I started physical exercising which I had done little of it in my life and started increasing the time on my physical exercise.   I learned cycling and now cycle 20 miles in a day and also walk 2 to 3 miles a day if the weather permits.   I never thought I was going to allow my cancer to take over my life and it did not.   I do have ups and downs but hey that is nothing compared to difficult time I had for the first year.   My advise to any cancer patient is to never give up and do a lot of xercise.   I also had an exceptionally good surgeon who supported me and is supporting me in my not so good time.   I do not know where you live but always happy to help.  I had lymph node removed but the scar is not visible anymore.   I hope this helps

My husband was diagnosed a few weeks ago, had surgery removing piece of tongue and reconstruction of the tongue. They also removed neck limph nodes. Dr feels all cancer in tongue was removed due to the margins. We are now embarking on the next part of the treatment whether it be radiation or chemo... Can you give me an idea of what treatment you had and are there any lingering issues???

Hi BACMMO,

Sorry to hear your news, but never fear the treatment these days is pretty good and within six months or so your husband should be well on the mend.  As you will see on this site the usual treatment is:

32 sessions of radio therapy and perhaps 6 sessions of Chemo.

The RT is painless but may give you something like mild sunburn.

The chemo can cause nausea and sickness. This will normally be controlled with drugs.

Once your husband has experienced the first week and knows what to expect it

is just a case of getting through it. 

It is probable that his speech will be affected for a while but most people get back to normal

within a few months.

My case was fairly bad and I cannot eat at all and only my wife understands my speech.

The professor told me this would be so before the OP. and gave me the alternative of

going home with a lot of morphine to see out 6 months.  That was 8 years ago and my life

is unrestricted in all other respects. So listen to the doctor, if he says things should be OK

relax and look forward to 6 months time when all this will be behind you.

Good Luck

Colin

Hi Leo

Just to let you know that I've spoken to Gary (Guzzle) and he has already committed to doing the Thunder Run, which is great news!  

Best of luck

Irene

I'm so sorry to hear about your condition. I was diagnosed with base of tongue cancer in 1996 and treated with surgery and radiation. Please know with hope and postive vibes, a new beginning can come from this illness. I wish you nohting but luck and healthy living. I will be more than happy to share my experiences and some tools to help your family through this time. If you want to have more information regarding this, feel free to contact me.

Have a nice weekend!

My husband started treaments this week after fighting to get started chemo was on Monday and he is taking Docetazel due to being a diabetic. All sent well except he had an alergic reaction severe back pain, they stopped, gave benebrylwaited 30 minutes and started again, all went well, no side effects. he has had 4 days of radiation 1 more later today and they all went well. 1st day was alittle long doing all the adjustments but yesterday in out in 25 minutes for radiation. so far so good,,,1 week down 5 to go...

Bakmmo

Please pass my thoughts on to your husband this stage of the treatment is never nice and don't get easy as he progresses through. However we all go through this differently, some better than others, so my fingers are crossed for your hubby.

Hang in there it will be worth it and shout if you need to know anything

Having been through it thats what we are hear for

All the best

Vatch

Hello everyone!

I must apologise for my lack of replies recently. Life has been hectic but things have started to settle down so I'm back on here, I told you all you wouldn't get rid of me haha!

Good to hear from some newbies - Ken, Ryan, Mary & Gazza and a few others. Sorry to hear of your cancer news but you've come to the right place for help, support and advice. I've had the pleasure of meeting a great bunch of people from this site and I hope we will all be lifelong friends and always keep in touch and any newbies are also welcome on our next meet up! I'm also happy to give any advice from my experiences of the treatment.

Irene, Simon, The two Gary's, I hope you are all well. I'm now 18 months post treatment and doing well. Still finding new things to taste and feeling more and more comfortable with eating and also confident with different foods. My first proper curry a couple of months ago didn't go down too well so I'll avoid those for a while longer but I have found new things to enjoy instead.

I have another ultra sound on my neck in a few weeks, the lump which popped up a few months ago is still there, it's been scanned twice already buy they are confident it's nothing sinister, probably just a swollen lymph node from a cold I had. Hopefully they are right! I'm a bit concerned about my teeth, my lack of saliva is pretty bad since RT so I'm conscious of this having a damaging effect on my teeth and they seem to be decaying quicker than ever before so I'm going to have to talk to my dentist about that. However, life is on the up right now and I'm looking forward to a trip to California in August! I'm also starting a new job next week! 

Debbie, how's things with you? I hope your op went well if you've had it yet? I will be thinking of you. I must also, catch up with Jo's thread too.

Bye for now and best wishes to these going through their treatments. It does get much better!

Nicola xx