Katherine: a flutist’s fight with oral cancer
My name is Katherine and I’m 49 years old and I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I’m married now for the second time since June of 1998, and I have one child. He’s 15 year -old boy, and my story begins. I am a flute professor at Louisiana State University, and have been for fourteen years. And as part of my job I travel all over the world and do concerts and teach master classes and that sort of thing. In 1997, in April, I was doing a concert and teaching a series of master classes in Shanghai, in China. And one morning during this visit, I woke up with a rather large canker sore on the underside of my tongue, and it kind of scared me at first because it was really large. It felt like there was something in my mouth and I couldn’t get it out, and but when I looked in the mirror and saw that it was a canker sore, I calmed down because I didn’t think very much of it. I mean I was stressed out, I was trying to speak Chinese, I was doing a concert that night, and so on. So I thought, well, it’s just a canker sore. And after the concert it was over, the stress of that, it felt better, and I went on from there to Hong Kong and did more, and so on.
But when I got back to the United States, it didn’t go away, so I first went to my dentist. As the dental hygienist was doing my, this was in May in 1997 and she was cleaning my teeth, and I mentioned it to her and she looked very concerned and she said, “Oh, the dentist really needs to look at this. But when the dentist saw it, he just said, “Oh, it’s just a canker sore”, and he told me to use a combination of Benadryl and Maalox or something, and put that on it. So I tried doing that and then I was away for the summer. I was visiting a friend in Illinois and while I was there I was seeing a chiropractor for something else. …read the rest of this entry»

Hi. My name is Joe. I’m a survivor of tongue cancer. I was diagnosed in 1995. I had no symptoms. I basically went to the doctor for another problem. I thought I was having sinus problems. I had a little lump on my throat. At that time I was in Florida, which I am now. I didn’t have a doctor so I went to the phone book and picked out a doctor. Thank God that this doctor saw my type of disease before and told me that he didn’t think my problem was sinus that he thought it was something more serious than that. That he’d give me antibiotics for one week and come back and see him, which I did. From that point, I went to an ENT who diagnosed me with squamous cell carcinoma. He also sent me to a MRI the very same day. It was kind of odd because I got diagnosed on my mother’s birthday, which is the same disease she died with, the same disease I have, which is kind of a brings it back in your face account.
From then on we went to–I was forwarded to Sylvester Cancer Clinic down in Miami, Florida. I was told that the doctors down there were capable of doing the surgery. I was referred down there. It took me a month to get an okay by my insurance company, which as all of you know, that’s the first problem you run into, is your insurance company. From there I ran through tests to see if I could survive the surgery, they read my MRI’s and told me what my cancer was. At that time, my chances of survival were surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. On May 28, 1997, I had my surgery, which was 18 and a half hours of surgery. That’s taking the cancer out plus the reconstruction on my tongue and throat and palate. They did skin grafts off my wrists and arm. Six weeks later after I had recovered from the surgery, I started my chemotherapy and my radiation. And the first two weeks were fairly normal. After the first two weeks I was extremely sore. Radiation got my throat very sore, plus the chemotherapy started. …read the rest of this entry»

Dick Foley:
Hello, and welcome to the American Cancer Society Cancer Survivors Network. I’m your host, Dick Foley. Today I’ll be talking with three survivors of tongue cancer. And, as a cancer survivor myself, I am very pleased to be your host for today’s conversation. We’ll be talking about: watching for signs of recurrence; coping with the long-term effects of treatment; staying informed and being proactive; and finding support.

Our first guest today is Steve. Steve is a 48-year-old survivor from New Jersey. Steve is married and has a 19-year-old daughter. We’re glad to have you with us, Steve.

Steve:
Oh, glad to be here.

Dick Foley:
Now, let me just recap your story a little bit. Your cancer was first spotted by your dentist during a routine exam. The lesion was a whitish area on the side of your tongue that you suspected was a reaction to some recent dental work you had had. After a couple of weeks, the dentist checked you again, and he found that the lesion was still there, and he referred you at this point to an oral surgeon. The surgeon listened to your story, without mentioning the possibility of cancer, and did a biopsy. The results showed that you had a stage I (maybe bordering on stage II) squamous cell carcinoma. You underwent a single five-day round of chemo with 5FU. Three weeks later you underwent surgery in which part of your tongue and several lymph nodes in your neck were removed. You had a tracheotomy for six days. You are now considered cured, and you’ve had check-ups every four months. We’re delighted that you would join us today, Steve, and share your story with us.

Steve:
Well, that sound’s like my story all right. …read the rest of this entry»