Hi all,

I used this forum under the names DaniO or Danijams years and years ago when my mom Barbara was in treatment for her tongue cancer. I couldn't remember my password or email that I used so I had to make a new one. She has been cancer free for over 13 years but over the past year and a half she had been loosing weight and having a harder time eating (bear with me because I don't remember all the technical terms). Her ENT scheduled a PET scan back at the beginning of summer and although I told him I'm sure its not cancer they got the scan and it was clear.

Her ENT had mentioned seeing a swallowing doctor but my mom put it off to vacation etc over the summer. We were out one day and she started to turn bluish and couldn't breathe so I called the medics (we were at a theme park) and they came to aid and took her vitals and she seemed ok although very dehydrated. So we kept telling her to stay hydrated keep eating etc. Eating had become more and more difficult so fast forward to last week. She had to be rushed to ER for breathing difficulty again. She was diagnosed with her second pneumonia in 2 months. She had been having dizzy and fainting spells for the past 6 months or so. We attribute them to being malnourished and dehydrated and so did her ENT. So long story short we saw the swallowing doctor, had the barium swallow test and it turns out that a lot of food and what she is drinking is going to her lungs. Over time she has lost sensation and muscles in her throat and cannot feel that the food and liquid is going into her lungs. I had the doctors rush procedures so that we could get her to do anything they could. So today she just came out of surgery to get a G-tube and get a procedure to stretch her throat, remove scar tissue and fix the flap that keeps food out of her lungs.

What I really want to stress is the necessity of continuing with swallowing therapy even though the cancer is gone. Her swallowing doctor could not stress how important it is that you keep those muscles working and to keep the visits to the swallowing doctor up after treatment. In my moms case it had been over 10 years since she had seen him. So now to get her to a healthy weight again and keep her drinking and eating by mouth as much as we can.

Danielle
Daughter of mother age 69 - 13 years tongue cancer free