I am convinced I have given myself oral cancer.

I have been a smoker for years. I gave up in 2019 when I became pregnant and did not smoke for 12 months. I then developed horrendous postnatal depression and psychosis and became a heavy smoker, and have been smoking around 15-20 a day for the past three years. Mostly out of habit, stress and anxiety. 
 

I am a mum to a three year old severely autistic little boy. He is my absolute world. 
 

5 weeks ago I woke up with a straight cut on the inside of my top lip, it would bleed and was a bit sore, and I had no idea how it got there! It has not healed, sometimes it bleeds into my teeth during the night. 
 

GP put in an urgent referral to the maxillofacial unit at my local hospital and I was seen within three days, my appointment was yesterday. The doctor said it is a fissure and gave me a lecture about smoking. He said he can't say it's not cancer but isn't overly worried. However he said he is going to remove it, stitch my lip and then test for cancer. Even though he told me to try not to worry, I can't help but think the worst. 

Today my bottom lip suddenly became saw and I have swelling on the inside of my bottom lip, it is a little sore but only when I touch it. It's normal colour but a visible bump, that feels firm. I haven't bitten it or burnt it, it's turned up out of the blue like the fissure. 
 

Deep down it's like I know I have oral cancer. I feel in limbo because I know I won't know for sure for a month or so. 
 

I am terrified my little boy is going to struggle through life without his mum. I can't stop panicking and crying, it's non-stop. 
 

Has anyone been through this and what was the diagnosis/outcome? Any words of advice? Did you just *know* before they told you? 
 

Please reply. I'm so scared.

  • I haven't had oral cancer, but I don't think that feeling it will be cancer means anything at all.

    When I did have thyroid cancer, I was absolutely convinced it would be benign. I kept thinking, "I could have cancer, but sure, I'll get the results of the biopsy on Wednesday and then I'll know everything is fine and it will all be over." I went in pretty much wishing the appointment time would hurry up so I could stop worrying.

    On the other hand, about 18 months after that, I had some rectal bleeding and while logically, I knew the odds of anything serious were low, I had this feeling I was going to get bad news (probably, to be fair, because it had been the last time, and a lot of what I was being told was very similar; "there's no reason to think it is cancer. Most cases of this are completely harmless. But we should check just to be sure") and everything turned out completely fine and exactly as I had logically reasoned. 

    I think it's normal to get the bad result in your head. It's sort of a way of your mind preparing itself for the worst case scenario. I really don't think it says anything about what the actual result will be.