Hi everyone. I was pretty much a regular here in 2009/2010. Had the tongue flap/neck dissection etc and have kept healthy since then with most speech and eating functions only slightly problematic. At that stage I'd had three cancer diagnoses in my life and I'd survived all of them. By the end of last year I thought I was pretty damn smart, although I wasn't very happy. I was struggling to learn how to live alone after my husband's move to a dementia unit. Getting another cancer was the least of my worries so when I rolled up for a 6 monthly check up in Auckland I felt only the slightest little prickle of anxiety. But no, the surgeon took one look and exclaimed, "How long have you had that manky patch back there?" It's in my left cheek up high. I couldn't feel it although the left side of my mouth is where all the food washes up and it's often sore and irritated. This was 11 December and there was some hold up with the biopsy results. It transpired that they'd had to send the sample to a second lab to confirm it was cancer (I think). I'm notorious for being reluctant to follow up surgeons by cellphone and I'd also come down with gastro-enteritis so my son pestered the surgeon until Xmas Eve when the results came through: a small early cancer but I'll need THE surgery and a patch. My son knows little about cancer so I have no details of grade/type/surgery etc and will have to wait till tomorrow, 6 Jan when I will throw all caution to the winds and text the surgeon, ring the hospital clinic and so on.

If it's as small and early as the second hand report suggests it is, then I'm very lucky but oh how I hate to think of another surgery. I've had enough thoracotomies, laparotomies and tongue ops to last several life times!

Making it rather bizarre was the fact my son delivered the diagnosis to me through a closed ranch slider because my gastro-enteritis was so virulent that I decided to keep away from everyone till 48 hours after it passed. Xmas alone!

So I've had some weird cancer diagnosis delivery in the past but that capped the lot.