I was reasonably lucky I guess. First check with doctor on Jan. 14, biopsy on Jan. 22, first informed of my diagnosis on Jan 29, consult with surgeon, pathologist & dental folks on Feb 3, consult with radiation dude on Feb 11, CT scan on Feb 17, then into surgery on Feb. 25.

Not sure if I was fast-tracked because of either how serious it looked and/or how likely I was to recover. Or perhaps I was just lucky in terms of having capacity at the time, but I also heard horror stories of much longer waits. However, I am in a major city center and they have several tiers of doctors so I'd guess it's very unlikely that they have gaps because of people on vacation at the same time.

Escalation did happen pretty quickly though. In my case, it went from just looking like a cold sore, to suddenly maybe half an inch of missing tongue in a couple of weeks. Imagine hanging a quarter on your tongue in such a way that it covers 1/2" of your tongue - thats about what it looked like by the time I saw the surgeon the first time. Quite scary stuff.