It seems a long time ago now, almost 7 weeks, when the lump in my throat became noticeable. I was sure it was a bout of tonsillitis, as my wife and stepson had recently come down with the fever and the feeling like they were swallowing razor blades. My throat wasn’t that sore, just uncomfortable, but had some spots that made it look like a rather rancid toadstool. I thought that a quick call to the GP surgery and a course of antibiotics should do the trick and everything should be right as rain……or maybe two courses of ABs that’ll do it…….but no, they didn’t touch the sides!
So a doctor’s appointment and a referral to ear nose and throat (ENT) clinic later, I was laying in a tube clunking away around me as an MRI scan was underway. Afterwards I remember the radiographer telling me that they’d look at the scan and if there’s nothing to worry about I’d get a letter discharging me, otherwise, if it was something a bit more sinister, I’d be called for a chat with a consultant. Ten days went by with nothing landing on the doorstep and I was feeling rather positive, but then the phone rang and things changed forever.
I was called in and although we’d (my amazing wife and I) already figured out what the likely diagnosis would be, hearing it from the consultant was pretty upsetting. He was so positive even with the shocking news and before I knew it he was taking lumps out of my tonsil with an instrument that was probably designed for torture in the Middle Ages, luckily this was clean and had sharp edges, and I’d had some local anaesthetic sprayed into my mouth, so before I knew what was happening he’d taken the biopsy to tell us the type of cancer.
I was booked for a chest CT scan soon afterwards along with a fine needle aspiration of my lymph node, which was now noticeable below my jawline, the hospital had all they needed to diagnose me. A week or so later it was confirmed HPV related cancer of the right tonsil. Luckily the CT chest showed no abnormalities, so it’s all associated with the tonsil and lymph node, still pretty daunting, but manageable and curable, so now to go into battle!!!
