Hello JT. It's good to have you here. There really does seem to be a waiting period for oral cancers. It seems like quite a few people spend alot of time waiting for the symptoms to go away. I think it could be a couple of things. One, there are so many other things that could cause soreness in the oral areas, and two, it's more comforting to assume soreness or sores are coming from colds ect.. than to think Cancer. My personal experience was I had sore throat but not virus type sore. It was just aggrivating like it was possibly being caused by allergies. I really didn't pay any attention to it because the allergy problem in my area has been getting worse over the past couple of years.

Last Oct., I raised my neck to shave and noticed that it seemed swollen on the left side. After two months of bloodtests, antibiotics, and a FNA biopsy that came back negative my ENT said he wanted to do a surgical biopsy because the node was not going down. Then we found the cancer. It took almost three months from the time I noticed the swelling but I had the soar throat for awhile. It would come and go though. I don't think that you or anyone else is stupid, we just don't think of having cancer, or maybe just don't want to. I am sure that as cancer becomes more widespread people will start thinking of it alot quicker. Also hopefully Dr.s can get on the same page. It seems the more rural the area the less the dr.s are up to date on the advances in treatment ect. Thanks for coming and offering you experience. That's what life is about, people helping people.