Haha, my first post on my introduction thread was also very long. Even though we may have plenty of people to communicate with in our personal lives, there's nothing like talking to those who actually understand what we've been through or are about to go through.

Strange how some cancers take so long to develop and others are quicker to move. In my case, the ulcer opened up and seemed to quickly eat away at the side of my tongue.

So they removed a significant portion of my tongue and had to replace it with a chunk from my wrist about 7cm x 6cm (2.75" x 2.4"), then fill that hole with skin they scraped from my thigh. They saved the back of my tongue and part of one side. You might end up with something similar. I also received the trache, which I absolutely hated. Plus they had placed a feeding tube down my nose, which stayed in place until the trache was removed. The trache was nasty, horrible, truly scary when it plugs up, extremely inconvenient, but hey, it kept me alive and I got through it. You'll get through it too.

Luckily I didn't need chemo. They removed a schwack of nodes from my neck but none of them were cancerous. I did receive radiation treatments, however. It wasn't so bad in my case, although I'm seeing some issues with my teeth now, many months after the treatments ended.