Hi Tammy- I smoked briefly in college but haven't smoked in 7 years and somehow I got tongue cancer too. Basically its just bad luck. There are so many different factors that could have caused our cancer-- some studies have pointed to HPV exposure-- have you been tested for htis? Lots of info on this site related ot that.. - it coudl have been contaminated water- you could have breathed in something unknowingly- Repeated trauma to the tongue can cause the cells to come back as cancerous... Mainly its just that we for whatever reason had cells in our tongues that had the genetic pre-disposition to turn into cancerous scc cells and something triggered them to turn into those cancerous cells. Some people can smoke thier whole lives and never have cells that run into cancer.
Maybe the cigarettes that I did smoke caused them-- mayeb I had an exray a the dentist that caused it-- who knows.

anyways-- I knwo this is an awful horrible disease to deal with-- just don't get too hung up on why it happened - moreimportant to focus with irradiating it from your body and rehabilitatiing rom the sugery and treatments.

How are you feeling??

Hang in there~~~~