Kathleen,

So glad to hear you are relaxing a bit. Good luck on the 18th. We are all pulling for you and your Mum.

Dinah,

The ENT did find my daughter's cancer, but not right away. She had no outwardly visible signs. Her first symptom was the pain deep in her ear. Then she had a sore throat. It hurt especially when she swallowed. Then she had the pain in her neck and jaw. She could feel a lump inside, but no one could feel anything on the outside.

The CT scan didn't even pick up on anything. Although I do wonder if she maybe just had a poorly done scan because it didn't even show anything wrong with her lymph nodes, even though one was 1.2 cm when removed during surgery, which was performed only a few weeks after the scan.

Anyway, by the time the scan results were back, Heather could actually see something protruding from her tonsilar cavity. When she pointed this out to the ENT, he then poked and prodded until he could feel a bit of the lump. He did a biopsy the following week, which of course was positive for base of tongue cancer.

The main thing is for your friend to be thoroughly checked by an ENT, preferably an oncologist. He knows his body better than anyone and if he feels something is wrong, he needs to insist on being sent to a specialist. The sooner, the better.

Good luck,

Rosemary
P.S. Feel free to email me if you want.
[email protected]

Was primary caregiver to my daughter Heather who had stage IV base of tongue SCC w/ primary recurrence. Original diagnosis August 21st, 2002. Primary recurrence March 18th, 2003. Died October 6th, 2003.