Im going to be completely open and honest with you. I apologize if I sound a bit stern, it is not intended that way at all. I want to help educate you about risk taking behaviors that can lead to oral cancer and other serious health conditions. Every year we have so many new members join our group due to tobacco and alcohol. This is avoidable by making healthy life style choices.

Here is some info you may find helpful from our main OCF site. It explains about the 2 week "rule" of allowing the sore time to heal on its own. Having a spot, sore, lump, etc in your mouth does not automatically mean its anything cancerous. There are more noncancerous spots/sores someone could have in their mouth than the cancerous type. Abstaining from tobacco and alcohol is often all mouth sores/spots need to heal on their own. As Im sure you already know, stress and anxiety do NOT help your situation either. Try to stay super busy to help the time pass quicker. If you have an appointment only a couple days away, its ok to keep it and get checked. Just make sure you explain about only recently discovering the spot.

As far as bringing your wife into the loop, thats up to you. Think about it this way... how would you feel if she kept a potentially serious condition from you? You know your wife better than anyone but, most spouses are very supportive when a medical scare happens. Most marriages deal with problems together using teamwork and supporting each other. People will often surprise you with how they respond to this type of thing. This very well may turn out to be nothing serious.

As far as if you are able to enjoy a beer here and there down the road, that's a conversation between you, your wife and your physician. Patients who drink alcohol run a much higher risk of getting oral cancer or some other serious medical condition. At least give your mouth a break by avoiding alcohol until you know exactly whats going on in your mouth. Heres a link below explaining it further. Get all the info you can about the impact alcohol could have on your health and form a game plan for what works best for you.

I added a link about tobacco at the end of this reply as well. As I mentioned earlier, tobacco is what caused my cancer. Ive been thru years of serious medical conditions, treatments, recoveries all because of making bad choices. While Im still alive, I make it a point to educate children at schools and all adults I encounter to be smarter than I was and eliminate permanently all forms of tobacco from their lives. Maybe a photo would help to better understand why I am such an anti-tobacco advocate? Do a quick Google search by typing Oral Cancer Foundation, Christine and then view the images. Maybe that will help you to understand just how serious problems tobacco can cause. Dont get fooled by the e-cigs or vaping. Those are not any better, they're owned by the big tobacco companies and contain known cancer causing ingredients as well. The average oral cancer patient is male, over 50 with a long history of smoking and drinking. Please do your best to make a couple changes so you wont fit into these statistics!!!

Wishing you all the very best, good luck!!!

Main OCF Site --- Alcohol and oral cancer

OCF Main Stie -- Tobacco Connection