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November is Mouth Cancer Awareness Month, and today we have a guest blog from Joyce. She one of our reviewers, and was diagnosed with mouth cancer almost 10 years ago. Hello, my name is Joyce and I’m a mouth cancer survivor. It was back in 2008 when a sore developed on the floor of my mouth, not thinking too much of it I just plied it with a mouth ulcer gel. Forward a couple of weeks and as the sore was still there I mentioned this to my GP’s surgery nurse during a routine health check, she then recommended a check at my dental surgery. |
So the dentist took a look at the assumed ulcer and said he would refer me to a specialist – “for peace of mind”. My appointment with the maxillofacial consultant duly arrived and it came as quite a shock to discover that he wanted to do a biopsy on this sore – why, I asked? The reply was brief and to the point, he suspected mouth cancer.
The biopsy was taken and I returned a couple of weeks later for the results – the diagnosis came back as a well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. My world fell apart and the journey began.
The next few weeks were taken up with further appointments, including an MRI scan, to check the extent of the cancer. My consultant said that he would perform extensive surgery to remove the cancer, at this point my life was taken over by the medical teams involved. Everything was planned from numerous pre-op checks right down to signing the consent form – all was set.
The ten-hour surgery was successful and I spent two weeks in hospital before being told that I needed follow-up radiotherapy to ensure the destruction of any possible remaining cancer cells. Further planning went ahead for this which required the making of a mesh mask, used during the treatments to hold my head perfectly still.
It was a long-haul journey, not only for me, but my family as well. Apart from my consultant and all involved, my thanks must also go to everyone in Macmillan’s Online Community. Fellow head and neck cancer patients were marvellous in their help and support during my dark days.
Mouth cancer is not one of the more well-known cancer types, I had never heard of it before I became a patient myself – so more awareness is needed due to an increase of head and neck cancer cases. My advice to anyone who has any symptoms that could be mouth cancer, for example a mouth sore which doesn’t heal in a reasonable time is to go and see your dentist. It may appear as either a red or white patch on the tongue, cheeks or upper palate or even a lump in the neck – perhaps as mine, which likened a mouth ulcer. In fact, anything out of the ordinary that develops needs attention – always best to be safe than sorry. Many more dental surgeries now carry out an oral check during a routine six-monthly check-up, if they don’t then ask for one.
As they say, if in doubt get checked out – it could save your life.
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