They all said it was nothing!

I remember a consultant telling me nicely to stop wasting his time having nasal cameras! He said there was nothing wrong with me. 
I kept having a gruff voice. It was only when the lymph node swelled in my neck that they panicked. 
Tonsil cancer. 

Hello SisterT 

Sorry to see you here but a very warm welcome to our group. 
unfortunately, we do seem to get ignored and dismissed. 
I had to advocate for myself initially. Last year after finding a small lump in my neck that very quickly grew to 2cm, I requested an appointment with my GP explained my situation and was told I’d have to wait 3 weeks. I then took myself off to urgent care at my local hospital where thankfully a very good doctor immediately referred me to ENT for a scan and informed me he thought I had cancer, which I already suspected. 
I wish you all the best on your journey. Please feel free to reach out anytime, we are a friendly bunch always ready to support each other. 
sending a virtual hug. 

Denise 

T2N1M0 Left Tonsil and lymph node. 

Hi SisterT 

welcome to our little community. So sorry you’ve been messed about like this. 

SisterT said:

a tiny ulcer which after the biopsy I can hardly see where it was can turn into this

This is really good news. It means that it’s likely the cancer has been caught early despite the delay 

We have another member who although not having the same  tortuous route is now in a similar position to you. 
I’ll tag him and you might be able to do this virtually together 

 ScaredBrightonGuy 

Hi there SisterT ! Welcome to the community. While it's not technically a community any of us ever wanted to be a a part of, I know from personal recent experience that it's full of lovely, supportive people.

As Beesuit says, I'm on a similar pathway to you. One hopefully encouraging thing I can say (with the usual caveats that this doesn't constitute medical advice, blah blah) is that my alleged ulcer was about 1.5cm across when my consultant first saw it... and thankfully flagged it as cancer straight away.

So why should this encourage you? Because at my scan results meeting two days back, the consultant said this thing is "about as early as they get". Which hopefully means your rogue ulcer is at LEAST as early and therefore very treatable without radiotherapy. 

I'm sorry you're feeling messed about by folk. I mainly feel angry at myself for not getting checked out sooner, but I just thought this was sharp teeth causing an ulcer. And I guess it was... until the cells started to turn...

Hi SisterT, welcome to the group. You are in the loop now so as you can see things have got moving very quickly, which is really good. You will no doubt have lots of questions, and you can ask as many as you want on here, someone will always answer if they can. Be assured that these cancers are curable and the treatment does give very high rates of cure. 

Ray.

SisterT said:

I’m hoping to write a diary and have ordered a nice notebook and coloured pens etc. So funny that stationery is my go to!

That's a good thing...a few of us wrote blogs during RT. It was something we could control and gave us somewhere to talk to ourselves.

My neighbour, in her eighties had a small SCC on her tongue. It was simply excised with no further treatment and she is still digging the garden with her husband five plus years later

Hello SisterT and welcome from me, too.

You've come to a great place for support and advice which you'll get in spades.

I'm sorry you've been fobbed off but the ball's rolling now and I hope you've found encouragement from other posters, especially scaredbrightonguy as he's in very similar position to yourself.

The pad and pens are a smashing idea - write down things, especially if you start to feel the anger raising its head, and get it out of your system via the stationary.

We're all here if you need us and you can find me in the Awake and up all night forum if you're struggling to sleep.  I'm nocturnal (I was a badger in a previous life I've decided) so you'll always have someone to talk to.

Take good care and hugs.

Gill xx 

Hi SisterT and a warm welcome from me.

I was lucky that my presentation was taken seriously from the first instance.  I have a very unusual journey, but I remember being told after one biopsy that the tumour was the size of a grain of rice.  I went many years without chemo/radiotherapy, just surgery, but eventually a tumour presented itself once again (much larger and I did not know it was there at the time) and the option at that time was CRT. 

If they can get good margins on the tumour through surgery and you don't need CRT then that is positive news.  Surgery is difficult and has its own side effects but having experienced both it is easier than CRT insomuch that recovery is quicker.  Having said that, I and many others are living a  very good life post treatment and there is every reason to expect that you will.

Hi Sister T welcome from me I’m 7 years post chemo radiotherapy for HPV driven tonsil,cancer with 7 lymoh nides. Yiuve found us so stick with us we’re a friendly bunch always ready to help,out. Yes the shock of being told you now have a dedicated cancer nurse brings everything to a crescendo. It’s ok to rant it’s ok to cry we don’t judge we’ve all been there. 
I too love a good but if stationary. I did my blog link below as it was my means if control. I couldn’t control what was happening to me but the blog I had complete control over. 
we look forward to reading your story You can also uodate yiur profile in here by clicking your name, that can become a diary as well. 

Hi SisterT.  Welcome from me too. It is a real shock to be diagnosed with cancer when you have been so healthy. I was the same as you, never smoked, did not drink. ate healthily, was reasonably fit with a normal BMI. I had a small ulcer on my gum which turned out to be jaw cancer. Fortunately for me my vigilant dentist picked it up. That is good news that you have been told that you will not need radiotherapy. That means that they are confident that they will be able to remove all the cancer with good margins. You will get great advice from lived experience on this forum. It has helped me so much and I don't feel alone with my challenges.

I am living a great life still and once you get through this you will too.

Sending best wishes

Lyn