Hi, my father had first occurrence in early 2009 on his left lateral border of tongue and the ulcer refused to heal. He had partial glossectomy of tongue and selective neck dissection on left side of neck in Mar 2009. It was followed up with Concurrent Chemo-radiation (daily radiation, total 60 Gy for 30 days with weekly Cisplatin). He went on to fully recover by August 2009 when his PET/MRI confirmed that he is cancer free. He went on to active life and built a big home in Palakkad, Kerala to lead rest of life peacefully.

In early 2011, he had a routine Head-neck CT and we realized that the 6cm tumor is back on the right side of neck. He had 3 x 72 Hours TPF/DCF chemo to reduce the size which failed to help. It was followed by Radical neck dissection and 60 Gy of Unilateral radiotherapy on right neck to kill any residual cancer.

He was on path to recovery but another PET/MRI dashed our hopes in December 2011 when we found that the cancer is persistent with new hot nodes. He was on Palliative chemotherapy (Gefitnib) since then till he breathed his last.

Post-radiation effects and chemotherapy took toll on his diet and health. He started to have strokes (probably due to blocked right carotid artery) and cachexia. He used to have episodes of severe pain near his right ear with drop in blood pressure and oxygen levels. He was hospitalized for 3 weeks in May to get situation under control. Except during pain, he was absolutely fine through the day. We tried variety of pain killers and finally he was on Fentanyl patch. We lost him to cardiac arrest on 26th May, it was a peaceful death.