No cancer, lots of possible causes and options for solutions, but they all seem trivial in this forum. Certainly a huge relief, but after a long drive home, some thoughts. First, how incredibly humbling to sit in the waiting room on the head and neck center at MDACC. On my way out, the overwhelming thought was "God knew I was not as strong as these people must be, he knew I could not handle this".

The most valuable piece of advice I got from this forum was "do not pass Go, do not collect $200, go to a CCC". They got me in within a week and put an end to three plus years of needless worrying in two hours. Thousands of dollars, hours or my life and hours of worrying.

The doctors were not rushed, answered all my questions and, while they were not in any way judgemental or condemning, they were clearly not surprised at the lack of knowledge and inconsistency from the dentist, two oral surgeons and two ENT's I have seen over the past 3+ years. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I got this sick feeling while visiting about my frustrations that with the relatively small number of deaths, the fact that your average ENT or oral surgeon could go through their entire career and might miss one potential oral cancer if they ignore all but the most obvious cases, they might consider this an acceptable error rate. And besides, if they did, "that person shouldn't have smoked, drank, etc." Sorry, I have this basic problem with medical care in that if a GP tells every single patient to "go home and take two aspirin and call me in two weeks if you don't improve", they are by default assumed to be correct 95% of the time because the human body will cure itself in at least 95% of all ailments.

Sorry, I digress...

They said that MRI's probably would not pick up early oral SCC. Yes on nodes. Another interesting point on initial detection, all tongue cancers originate on the epithelium (surface) and tools like Velscope simply aid in detecting the very early subtle changes in the surfaces of the oral cavity, changes that they see enough of to pick up with simple visualization. These tools do not detect anything occuring under the surface.

I am very appreciate of the responses and welcoming by most of you and to those offended by my presence, I apologize for not meeting your standards for participation. I would think that any additional exposure and awareness for this cause would be worth the seeming drivel.

I feel this need to do something, but still need to figure out what the best use of my efforts would be. I would welcome any suggestions. Obviously, after sitting in the waiting room today, I feel sorry for the poor teenager I catch coming out of the convenience store tomorrow morning. It might be my highest and best use in life....harassing young tobacco users at 7-11. Having quit myself once a week for 20 years, at least I won't just be preaching.

Glad to hear that cancer is off your list! Better than a clean biopsy!

[quote=HarryT]
I feel this need to do something, but still need to figure out what the best use of my efforts would be. I would welcome any suggestions. Obviously, after sitting in the waiting room today, I feel sorry for the poor teenager I catch coming out of the convenience store tomorrow morning. It might be my highest and best use in life....harassing young tobacco users at 7-11. Having quit myself once a week for 20 years, at least I won't just be preaching.[/quote]

I try to avoid this unless I actually know the kids involved, although I am not always successful!

Reminds me of "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Harry,

I'm glad for the "no cancer" diagnosis - I don't want to be a member of this club and I'm glad you don't have to join.

Wishing you the best!

[quote=HarryT]No cancer, lots of possible causes and options for solutions, but they all seem trivial in this forum. [/quote]

So what are the possible causes and solutions?

Take care,
Eileen

allergies, acidic irritation from fruits, cumulative irritation due to dental irregularities, excessive tongue movement either during sleep or simply unaware of it while awake, dryness, etc., all potentially applicable to my situation.

Solutions are what you would expect for each of these but would require narrowing the cause. i.e. allergy tests followed by cutting out the allergen. Also a mouthguard for sleeping.

Just the knowledge that it was not dangerous made it much easier to put it out of my mind today. I am going to start cutting out certain foods for a few days at a time and see how that works.

Excellent news Harry! Its very scary to go thru the process of thinking you may have cancer. Im so happy you are not going to need this forum. Consider yourself very very fortunate. Best of luck in the future

Close calls are the very best kind because you learn a lot!

I agree with Pete, the closer the call, the more it sinks into out thick heads. Good luck in the future HarryT

they did not hesitate when it came to a biopsy for my mom. It was the natural answer to the question of what it was....why do some drs push things off? Just the look if it?? Just curious!!

Certainly if a doctor sees enough OC patients they will see enough that they can predict the outcome with a good degree of accuracy. Noting that nothing can replace a biopsy but after reading so many biopsies and then relating that to what it looked like before the biopsy it's bound to have some recognition benefit. The Chief of Oral Surgery at Moffitt who was the first there to scope me, showed me my BOT on the computer monitor as he was scoping and told me right there "see this area, it's looks rough and I bet that's where your Primary is. That's the first place I'm going to biopsy tomorrow." Sure enough he was correct and my tonsils were saved from removal.