Hi! I am 4 weeks post 2nd surgery for tongue cancer. I'm an active 61 and still work as a high school teacher. This is a bit difficult with a hole in my tongue so I'm not starting again till next week. (Last little bit of tongue wound won't heal.)
I've had trouble with the left side of my tongue for four years. I had lichen planus; I had all my amalgam fillings out on the advice of a skin specialist and I moaned and complained about my sore tongue to all and sundry. Apparently it didn't look like cancer. Then on 3 September I finally had a biopsy and removal of the lichen planus too: of course scc was found, stage one and no lymph node involvement. Good I thought - shouldn't be too bad even if I did have to have a wider excision - 2nd surgery with Laser and tisseal glue. That went OK - not so painful - but the histology was strange - several other primaries - something about a multiple focus and something about an extensive field change. It wasn't explained to me at all well. I've seen only the surgeon and his staff and have asked that I can see an oncologist. It wasn't until I happened upon this site that I fully realised what a field change was.
In 1996 I had ovarian cancer stage 3C but miraculously I got over that. Phew! I not too sure about this one!