I’m never ill!….well, that was true until early July when applying moisturiser I came across a lump in my neck which had certainly not been there the day before. Cue quick triage form to my GP surgery..fully expecting (hoping?) to be told either that it was unlikely to be serious or to wait and see if it went away in a couple of days. Absolutely not. I was in front of my GP within an hour of hitting ‘send’ and 15 minutes later had been referred for an ultrasound. This took place 3 days later and resulted in a referral to ENT.
An MRI scan and a subsequent CAT scan revealed the primary culprit not to be the lymph node, but a tumour at the back of my tongue. This was something of a shock to me. I had, I think, resigned myself to a cancer verdict on the strength of the speed of the investigation, but I had convinced myself that the node was the primary villain. It came as a much bigger shock to my husband. As I stated above: I’m never ill! I suppose I should be grateful to that node….without it I would have been blissfully unaware of the existence of its more sinister partner in crime on my tongue. Have to say, the way I’m feeling right now, the jury is still out on that one!
A subsequent biopsy revealed a T1 HPV squamous cell tumour which my consultant was confident had been found very early and was treatable with a high probability of success. I was offered 2 possible routes: surgery or chemo/radiotherapy. I opted for the ‘get rid of it’ route, and the offending tissue was removed, together with a raft of lymph nodes a week later.
At this stage of proceedings I was buoyant. The tumour was small, had been found early and was treatable. Recovery from the surgery was painful and if you’d shaken me I’d have rattled from the pain relief I was taking….even if swallowing the tablets felt like downing rockery stones….until our local pharmacist advised taking them with yogurt. That lady deserves a medal. But the offending growths were out….weren’t they?
I was still bubbling with optimism when I went to ENT for my follow up appointment after surgery. I was buoyed up further when the Registrar announced that the tumour on my tongue had been completely removed and that it had spread to only one of the nodes they had removed and had been completely contained within it. It all came crashing down when he added that he was recommending radiotherapy to mop up any potential escapee cells, as the margin excised round the primary tumour had been fractionally less than the ideal. Bit of a rollercoaster of emotions from there on in.
I am now 2 weeks into radiotherapy. I won’t lie: it’s tough and I know it’s going to get worse, much worse. My biggest issue is eating. Everything tastes worse than foul and I somehow can’t work up too much enthusiasm for metallic tasting cardboard. Any ideas for overcoming this gratefully received!
Thank you for ploughing through these ramblings. It’s made me feel better writing this . I have faith there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think though at this juncture I can be forgiven for feeling that it’s more like an express train coming the other way……
