Hi, my husband was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue on 1/10/2001. We were devasted, for a couple of weeks we just sat at the kitchen table, looked at each other, and cried. He had the biopsy, then surgery, had all his teeth removed, and then had 37 radiation treatments. He was a heavy smoker and drinker before his diagnosis. He is doing very well now, and has not smoked at all since his treatments, and has only had a few beers. Nothing like what he used to do. He is happy to be alive every day.
He has trouble with the dry mouth still, he had the salivary glands and 17 lymph nodes removed on that side as well as about half of his tongue lengthwise, and the radiation took care of the rest of the salivary glands. We were living in the Atlanta area when we went through this, but are now in south Texas. He had excellent care from his team of doctors, but I was laid off and lost our insurance coverage. We came to Texas for a job, but there is no insurance still. He is 53, I am 50. I am glad I found this board, because I still worry about him. We are coming up on his two year survivor mark soon. I guess the fear and worry never go away. But, we don't cry anymore, we enjoy each day we have together.
I would like to correspond with someone who has a couple of years behind them like we do so I can find out if certain things he is experiencing are "normal" (if anything in cancer is normal) two years down the road.