Welcome to OCF, Rita! Im glad you have found our site to help get your brother thru his upcoming battle. Stick with us and you will learn all kinds of tips the medical professionals may not mention.
Unfortunately all the new things available for melanoma are not available for oral cancer. Sadly, OC is not one of the "big 5" cancers that gets lots of notice which means not so many research dollars. OC is treated with surgery and/or radiation with or without chemo. By itself chemo is only used to try to shrink tumors or for palliative care. The link below has page after page of detailed info about treatments for OC.
Treatment---from the main OCF pages If your brother hasnt already done blood tests, make certain they are testing both current thyroid and testosterone levels. If doing rads, he may have problems years down the road with his thyroid. A blood test now ensures he will know what his regular baseline thyroid levels should be. Taking a pill a day to manage your thyroid or testosterone isnt a big deal, but getting the baseline level is.
Take someone along to appointments, and a notebook to keep notes. Often after hearing the bad news, a patient tunes out anything else said so having someone along will greatly help.
He should also have a good dental exam. He may need to have some teeth pulled prior to surgery.
Line up friends and relatives to stay with him as much as possible while he is in the hospital. Make sure you tell him anyone who offers to help he should tell them when the time comes he will let them know what they can do. Write down everyones info so someone can reach out for help when necessary. Its easiest if he has only one point of contact so everyone who wants updates will ask this one person. When he isnt feeling the best he probably wont want to be bothered by a million texts, posts and emails.
After surgery, he may be unable to speak so others can understand him. Take a dry erase board to the hospital, and a little bell too so your brother can easily get someones attention if he is alone and needs help. This is also why someone should stay with him as much as possible. In the hospital a million people will be in and out of the room, most wont know he isnt able to talk and will expect him to speak to them.
Right now he should begin to concentrate on his intake. A major surgery like what he will most probably go thru will affect his ability to eat most foods for at least a few weeks. Then if doing rads, his sense of taste and swallowing ability could be compromised. Tell your brother to eat all his favorites now so he wont go into this with any cravings.
I could go on and on with way too many tiny little tips. Until a treatment plan is developed you wont know what the treatment will be. But, if I had to guess I would say dont be surprised to see the surgery followed up with about 35 radiation treatments, depending on staging also adding chemo.
Diagnosis--- from main OCF pages Please take your time to read thru the links, this will help you to better understand oral cancer and how it differs from other cancers. Send your brother and his spouse if married info to also join our site and educate themselves about oral cancer. If he isnt one to do research, print out the posts and pass them along to him. An informed patient and caregiver make for strong advocates.
Best wishes!!!
PS... I replied to your private message (PM). There another important link there too
