I was told the first time on July 18, 2006 by my oral surgeon. I twas the day after my divorce was final after a very long 3 years of delays by the ex. He was very nice and compassionate when he told me and he looked like he was ready to console me when I reacted. I just looked at him and said "OK what do we do next?"

I found my second tumor when I was at work one night just a couple of days before my next check up with my ENT. I knew what it was when I saw the little bit of red peaking through my skin graft in the floor of my mouth from my first surgery. When my ENT came into the exam room on June 6, 2008 for my appointment and asked me how I was doing I responded, "Well I think that we have a problem." We did the biopsy and she called me on the phone the next day and said that she was just confirming what I probably already knew.

The hardest part of the second time was they had everything all scheduled for a second surgery in July. A friend of mine dropped everything and came to my house to stay with my dogs while I was getting the surgery. The ENT called me the day before to inform me that the tumor was much larger than they thought and it was going to take a specialist to deal with this one. They already had the appointment with the plastic surgeon made for me, but it was almost 2 months September 25, 2008 , before I had surgery. I had chemo during that time, but I have no memory of much of anything from the biopsy until about November. Everyone keeps telling me that it is probably a blessing so I will go with that. I do remember that the tumor produced giant blood clots in my mouth overnight and I was in a lot of pain and very afraid. I wish that I had known about this forum then because I have very little family support.

Patty