Hi Everyone,
Before I get to my questions, I should briefly explain my situation b/c I'm rather bizarre.... I was diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer at 21 (actual final diagnosis Stage 4 T4 N3 M1) while on a school exchange in Charleston SC this February. I am a non-smoker and do not drink. I have a # of connective tissue diseases that run in the family and know I have 2 of them. I had my first surgery in SC in March (we did NOT do a functional neck dissection) and then came back home to Toronto to start radiation. Then we found the cancer in 4/5 lymph nodes in my neck, stopped radiation and did a radical neck dissection in May. Just an FYI, a PET scan I had in the US was clear 1.5 weeks before we found advanced cancer in my neck via a needle biopsy... thus I will always believe MRI's are the scans of choice for this type of cancer.

I've been through tons of treatment and have reacted very strangely in a bad way... i.e. my doctors have never seen blood levels stay so low for so long after chemo finished and although I finished radiation 4 months ago I have not healed at all which makes my doctors think I have Lupus (like my Mom) and they are booking me to see an immunologist. I'm struggling to get my life back on track. I have something that appears to be recurrent cancer on my tongue again - I go for a biopsy Nov. 13th when my tongue is better healed from treatments. I love life too much to let it go....

Here's my question for any experts out there.... I understand the HPV may trigger cancer in non-smoking young people... but how? How does it affect the cells? I know this type of cancer is very agressive with a high recurrance rate. I want to understand as much as possible in order to be as proactive as possible. I suspect I am missing a piece of DNA and that may be another cause for my cancer at a young age.... are there any alternative treatments other than surgery, radiation and chemo that you can suggest? At this point I'll look into anything.

Thanks for taking the time to read this posting.... look forward to hearing back from some of you.
~ Jen