Hello everyone.
My husband was diagnosed with tongue cancer (stage IV) in Feb 03 and since then he has had a part of his tongue removed, with a neck dissection, and 8 weeks of radiation therapy. Now he is recovering, and has many of the side effects that others have written about... dry mouth, lack of taste and appetite, tightness of the neck etc.
Even though his side effects get to him, he is being really optimistic about the overall outcome of this, even though the docs have stated that they can't tell him whether the cancer will come back or not.
There seems to be conflicting info out there on the survival rates of this type of cancer and stage. I have read papers on the internet that place the survival rate as low as 25% (for 5 years), my husband's radiation onchologist says that it is about 60%, my husband's surgeon is way optimistic and won't even give percentages he is so confident in his sugical abilities and seems to imply that my husband will be OK.
This leaves me confused... I know that the number game is not everything and that each person is an individual, but it is difficult to cope with so much uncertainty.
If anyone has any information that they would like to share with me on this topic, I would appreciate it.
Thank you so much for your time,
Katya