In my case, I had a sore place on my tongue for a couple of months that wouldn't go away. At first I thought that I had bitten my tongue and didn't think much of it. When it got worse, I had my dentist look at it. He got me in to an oral surgeon as soon as he saw it, and I had a biopsy. A week later the cancer was confirmed, and surgery was performed a week after that. They didn't mess around, and treated it very aggressively. There was also lymph node involvement, so it was considered stage IV. After a year and a half, I am currently cancer-free. (Yea!)