Hello,

My name is Mark, I just turned 34 Sunday and will be undergoing surgery within the next week.

Around August or so of this year I noticed a lump forming on the lower left underside of my tongue. At the time I just happened to have a very sharp loose filling on my back bottom molar, pretty much exactly where the lump was forming. I wrote it off as irritation from constantly grinding on the filling. Being busy with work and life in general I put off going to get my tooth fixed until early/mid November. I remember thinking to myself as I left the dentist's office "oh good now this sore on my tongue will finally heal up. Long story short...three weeks later and I notice the lump is bigger and getting sore to the touch. Im not much of one to go to any doctor unless I think Im dying, but for some reason I knew there was something suspicious about that lump, so I went to my primary doctor. The first words out of his mouth were "Let me get you an appointment with my ENT buddy, that could be cancer."

It took three weeks of waiting for appointments and for biopsy results and a CT scan to learn that I have stage II SSC.

Im feeling pretty lucky so far, the CT scan covered the top of my nasal cavity to the bottom of my lungs and nothing abnormal was detected other than the tumor on my tongue.

My first proposed treatment plan is just a single surgery to remove the tumor and remove some lymph nodes to send in to make sure the CT scan didnt miss anything.

Im going to see another specialist tomorrow for a second opinion, armed with my CT and biopsy results of course. Either way Ill be in for surgery by this Friday at the earliest, and next Friday at the latest.

I have to say that Im dealing with all this rather well. I dont feel sorry for myself in the least bit. I was a pack a day smoker for 15 years and spent almost every night of my early to late 20s drunk after work.

Just introducing myself.