Hello all.
First of all let me begin buy saying I was a chewing tobacco user for a little over 6 year. I quit the day before I got married and had quit for almost 2 yrs. Last November I started again. I battled back and forth with quitting Till May. In early June I noticed a sore throat and my glands swelled up a bit. At that point I waited a week or so and then went to my general practitioner. She felt as if the symptoms i presented were more of a viral infection. Things got progressivly worse over that month and the first week of july i would wake up with a really sore throat. At that point I was referred to a ENT who felt around and looked around, but didn't see any need for concern. Since that point, I can feel a few lymph nodes that are swollen. My initial swelling on the left side of my neck has subsidded, but i have a lump on the right side of my neck and two along my collar bone. One on the left and one on the right. In addition, i have felt a pian in the back of my throat around my right tonsil area. The doctors keep saying things look o.k. Last friday I had some blood drawn and they were going to check for anything in there. Over the weekend I noticed a small, hard, but movable lumps on the floor of my mouth. Earlier today, i went to an oral specialist and he said he wanted to see me in a couple of weeks to reexamine the lump on the floor of my mouth. The lump on my mouth is not exposed (open) as would a leison would seem to be from the pictures i have seen. There is not a white/red spot on it. Only a small hard bump that is under the skin. Has anyone had similar results? At this point, the thought of oral cancer consumes my every thought. My wife is pregnant with our first child, and that has only heighted my anxiety.

MeierEce, Welcome to our site. Sorry you had to find us, but if this is cancer, you are in the right place to get good info from some that have been there. Are you going to a cancer center? Is the ENT connected to a cancer center? If not, you should go to one ASAP. Given your tobacco use and the tonsil, lump situation, you should consult some experts soon. Don't panic, always remember that until a pathologist says its cancer, it isn't. It can be other things, but just to be prudent go to a center and get it checked out as soon as possible. I wouldn't wait a couple of weeks. Also, I don't believe cancer can be detected through a blood test, so that would not be of use to check for it. Again, not to panic, but if you aren't at a cancer center, I would go to one very soon and have the experts take a look. Keep us posted, OK, and I will add you to my prayers.

Thanks for you advice. I found out that the hospital my primary care has a cancer center, and I am calling and getting a referal to that center. In general I know that the anxiety is getting to me. When I am talking about it or reading this message board, I feel more relaxed because I am reading all of you testimonies and it is an inspiration to me. I have felt that up until recently that the doctor has not been listening to me. It is very frusterating. I think in the blood test she was going to be looking for an elevated amount of white blood cells.
I do have another question:
I want to go to this doctor and be a self advocate, but I am not sure what to ask for them to check out? Do I have them do a CT scan, an MRI to check the lump in my neck? What about the sore on the floor of my mouth? Does the MRI or CT scan show any abnomalities in the tonsil?

Also thanks for adding me to your prayers, you all will be in mine.

Andy

Andy,

You are never too prepared going to talk to the doctors. Everytime I get in the room my IQ goes down 30 points, and I'm only able to keep up due to all the research. In your case I can't imagine doing anything without a definitive diagnosis, which will probably be the result of a biopsy.

Let us know!

David

Andy, some diagnostic tools they can use, in order of less expensive to more expensive, would be feeling around/visual, ultrasound, apparantly a good ultrasound technologist can tell a lot. Needle biopsy, which is the most definiative way of telling what's going on. and PET/CT, scan.

Step after that which is more invasive is to remove one of the swollen nodes and do a biopsy.

There's probably other trics and things they can do, I'm not a medica professional but all of the above have been done on me.

Bob

Andy,
All your questions have been answered by our awesome board members so I'll leave that part alone.
Congratulations on expecting your first child! I have 7 girls and there is no experience in life that will ever rank above the birth of your children. A favorite saying of mine from Elizabeth Stone is "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body".
Do yourself, your wife and your child a favor...........put the chewing tobacco out of your life.
Take care and please let us know what you find out.
Minnie

MeierEce,

I used to feel intimidated by my late husband's doctors. One day when we knew things were down to the wire, we armed ourselves with a list of questions so we wouldn't forget or feel silly for asking things. (You know how you have big worries at home that seem trivial when you get in front of a white coat?) Well, I am a secondary school teacher and my husband was a college professor, yet this doctor in a white coat made us feel not so smart somehow. I looked at my list of questions and decided that if my husband's life was at stake (and it was), there was no way I was NOT going to make that doctor stand there and answer every single question we had whether they were silly or redundant or time consuming, whatever.

So, that's how you have to handle this. Get the best facility you can, get the best doctor you can, then ask every question you can and don't settle for being shrugged off. If you feel like something's wrong (like my husband did for months before a big recurrence) go with your gut and keep after those doctors. It's your life and you have to protect it.

Christine

Andy,

Welcome to the neighborhood. Hopefully, your membership to this club will be revoked for lack of proof.

I did not have oral cancer consuming my thoughts as you speak of but I did have a nagging hunch that the lump and then the second lump in my neck were something more than a sinus infection. I spent much of December, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun and July bouncing from doctor to doctor. I had four courses of antibiotics. I saw my allergist, family practitioner, 2 internal medicine specialists, dentist and, finally, a plastic surgeon. I asked him to just remove the lump to give me peace of mind since I could see it when I looked in the mirror and I could feel it when I turned my neck. He wanted a second opinion and suggested referring me to an ENT. I looked at my wife and she said take it out. I looked at the plastic surgeon and said there's your second opinion. I went to him because there are so many nerves in the face and neck, I wanted someone that could maneuver these nerves and remove the lump. He came out after the surgery and told me it was infected and puss filled and looked oddly enough like tuberculosis. He said he could see another swollen lymph node farther back and because he could not get to it in the room he was using, he opted to stuff everything back in and just take a biopsy. This was Friday, July 18, 2003. July 21, 2003 he called and told me I had metastatic Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Over the next few weeks I found out I had stage IV cancer with the primary tumor at the base of tongue.

I knew something was wrong but the important thing is that I never stopped until I had peace of mind that the doctors were doing enough to answer my question. Had I stumbled on this site in December 2002, I would have started treatment sooner because I would have known who to go to for positive confirmatin of what I was dealing with instead of trying to rule out what it wasn't.

Give yourself peace of mind and find the right place to go. Clear your mind and focus on the miracle of life that you are sharing with your wife. Nothing will ever compare to the experience of your firstborn child. I am wishing you nothing but the best of all possible worlds.

Ed

To update you. I scheduled an appointment with an ENT for the 17th of this month.
I do have a question for you all though.
What tests do I ask that they perform? They have all felt around the lumps on my neck and all determined nothing was wrong. But i feel like something is caught in the right side of my throat. If i push on my neck a bit, the feeling gets more intense. Reading the bottom of everybody's profile, some of you have indicated base of tongue primary. What were some of your symptoms?

MeierEce, generally base of tongue cancer victims don't present with any symptoms until it has metastastized to the regional lymph nodes. Then the symptom is a lymph node that has swelling that does not subside. This was my case.

When you see your ENT, you should expect a very thorough physical exam in that he's going to be feeling around the outside of your neck as well as all around the inside of your mouth. Chances are he's going to scope you, which includes running a small, flexible, lighted tube up your nose and down the back of your throat. From there he'll be able to inspect the base of your tongue, your lyrnax as well as other structures in your throat. If he finds the lumps in your mouth suspiscious, he may stick a needle in them and extract some cells for pathological review. This is called fine needle aspiration (FNA). Keep in mind that biopsy and pathological inspection is only concrete diagnostic method.

Best of luck...

-Brett