Over the past few weeks my solicitor has had Robins treatment reviewed by independant medical/dental experts.
This week i have received copies of the reports.The Dental report states categorically that the dentist was negligent .He was guilty of gross misconduct and fraudulent record keeping .
The report from the professor of head and neck cancer says he was negligent but he was'n't responsible for Robins death.

On Dec 4th on examination robin had a 4*3 cm swelling on the left side of his face as well as a 1.5cm ulcer on the lateral surface on the right side of his tongue.

The pathology on the tongue showed a poorly differentiated scc which was ulcerated and measured 11 mm invading into the underlying muscle.
The pathology on the neck showed a 31mm poorly differentiated scc in the soft tissue of submandibular region separate from the gland .The surrounding lymph glands were free from tumour.
Her conclusions are.. [quote] there are obviously great difficulties in suggesting the degree of benefit likely to have been achieved by an advance in the date of diagnosis and treatment by five months.One must recognise however the aggressive appearance under microscope ,the relatively short interval between the appearance of the tumour and the presentation of the gland on the neck,the unusual migration of tumour cells to the opposite side of the neck and the possibility that they had already reached that area by June 2006,the short intrval between the completion of treatment and the appearance of the local recurrance and the detection of the distant metastisis in the lung and finally the short interval between diagnosis and death.One cannot exclude the possibility that an earlier diagnosis would have given some chance of cure but i fear the possibility to be too small to be given significane.

[/quote]

So it would seem the General Dental councils decision was right and proper ,and the punishment the dentist received was fitting to his crime,and of course the world wide publicity which was associated with the hearing can only have been good for raising awareness and for all future potential oral cancer patient.

So the line is drawn finally .Cancer killed Robin.He was a high risk subject and he paid the ultimate price for his excesses,and i will continue to do everything i can to help other wives,husbands/daughters/sons/brothers and sister/living their lives in the shadow of this disease.
A suggestion has been brought up regarding a manual for the relatives who walk this road alongside their loved ones,and i think i am going to pick this one up and run with it.Cathy if you want to help i would be very happy and if any others from the old wives club fancy chipping in that would be great.I have an appointment with my grief counsellor tomorrow whic is well timed as now i have no one person to direct my anger towards i am sure she will hepl me give it up and move on..

Hi Liz- Must be difficult knowing that the Drs. cold have made different decisions that could have possibly lead to a different result for Robin. I too went to several drs and wanted to believe that there wasn't anything seriously wrong with me even though I felt horrible and was in so much pain.. and I knew that this thing on my tongue wasn't normal. Its hard because medical professionals all sort of look out for one another and protect one another and at least in America they will never speak out against one another.

My case was so obviously mishandled by my general practitioner who examined me twice. I should have been referred right away and she basiclaly laughed at me when I asked if the spot on my tongue was anything to be alarmed about. I don't know if I would have been able to speak any better but I do know that I would have been able to start my treatment much earlier and have been cured much earlier. I guess its just a really difficult thing to prove.

Thinking of you and knowing I would feel just as upset too. Sometimes there are just those days where it will never make sense.
I think the more knowledge people have the more awareness there will be of this disease and the sooner people will be able to catch the warning signs right away

take care. K

Hope you have a good session today LIz. Re the guide: you can count me in, if and when you want support.

Big hugs, I feel for you so.

Cathy

Liz, you can count me in too with regards to the guide. I'll help in anyway I possibly can. Hope you are feeling better after today xo

Liz-I'll be glad to help with the guide also. I think this would be invaluable.

Way to go Liz. I can't wait to read a rough draft. If we can get that published I will make sure it's available at Moffitt. I would also love to carry copies of it with me when I speak or even to have available in my office.

Well we better see what we can do then David lol

Seriously, Moffitt has their own OC pamphlet and it was one of the first things I read and to this day I'm not impressed with it at all so I think you could develop a much better one and perhaps we could publish under the OCF banner.

David i was thinking along the lines of a paperback book,but perhaps we could also incoporat an information pamphlet which we could roll out quicker leaving me time to get the format of a larger tome that i hope could include questions and their answers that have been asked both here and on MCF during my three year membership.This was floated from a carers stance.Do we have a pamhlet for new patients and if not should we be looking at producing one?

Cathy thanks for the kind thoughts.Yes the session went well,but once again even though i can feel the anger dissapating i cant let go of that one line she wrote"one cannot exclude the possibility that an ealier diagnosis could have resulted in a cure"but i am determined not to dwell on that,just turn it into a positive by ensuring that everyone gets the earliest diagnosis they can. xxx

Well girls looks like we got us a project!!

Hi Liz:

I have been following your posts, and want you to know how sorry I am about the loss of your husband. I hate hearing stories like that because I have had several misguided diagnoses from my doctors prior to being diagnosed with tonsil cancer. When I first noticed a swollen place on the right side under my chin in mid-2007, my general practitioner diagnosed it as a swollen lymph node from a sinus infection. Several weeks later, I called because the swollen place was still there - the nurses told me I was paranoid and not to worry - they have such things all the time and mine will go away - yeah, right! After several more weeks went by, I decided to go to an ENT on my own. He checked my throat and said my right tonsil was a little swollen, so he did a needle biopsy of the area under my chin, which came back NEGATIVE. I waited another several weeks and since the swollen place was still there, I went to yet another ENT. He didn't think I had a problem but suggested I have my tonsils removed since they looked "irritated." Well, after surgery, I ended up with SCC under where my tonsils had been, plus it had spread to the lymph nodes. Thus, the radiation and chemo, and fears for the future. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I am a retired 30-year technical illustrator/editor, and will be glad to help with your brochere in any way I can. Just let me know. Again, so sorry for the loss of your soul mate.

julieann

Liz,

I started to reply to your thread to let you know how I came to find I had oral cancer. It turned out to be a fairly long narrative so I am posting it on the General Board under "How Potato Chips Saved My Life"

It may help folks get an understanding of how different people came to know they had this disease if others post similar stories.

Julieann. your story sounds familiar. Been there done that and much more. But it burns you when they think we are dumb about things.

Hi all
this subject is overlapping between people who have cancer and those looking after people with cancer.I would like to wait until David or Brian indicate which way we go on this before i start to set it out.As far as the manual for loved ones could you guys send me an e-mail setting out how you felt the day you were told that your partner/relative had Oral Cancer.

thanks

I think that with all the offers of help here, we would be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity. If you would like to do this under the OCF banner, I am sure you all would do the foundation proud. And we would work hard to see that it ended up in the right places as much as possible. It's a worthy undertaking.

I suggest that you all form a committee/group, and put together an outline of what it needs to contain in some organized manner. That you pass that by the foundation's doctors for comment. Then the work begins. You can use the message boards to organize your themes and ideas and pass bits of it by the population here for comment. Once done, it can come to life first as a quicker, get to the field brochure, and latter as a more detailed, many story told, full blown, detailed tome on the subject that will help guide and comfort others.

yay x

Great! Look forward to hearing more!
Cathy

Liz,

I am working on "an e-mail setting out how you felt the day you were told that your partner/relative had Oral Cancer." Wow, this is rather difficult and is taking me a lot longer than I thought. Reliving that day is stirring up all kinds of feelings I had stuffed away. Anyway, I am working on it. Do you have a deadline?

I am also offering my help to you. This is a wonderful project!

Anita

Liz,

I am so sorry for yet another "smack in the mouth".

I think your idea is wonderful. I am going to ask my family members and also mom's closest friends how they felt--some of them are better than family! I know this is going to be quite a success, wish they had something like this for when I was sitting in the waiting room, or the treatment rooms.

Donna

No Anita there is no deadline,The manual is not going to happen over night because i want it to be the best we can do and will be a work in progress for a while.The brochure will come first so you just take your time thankyou.Donna thanks for the vote of confidence xxxx

Liz....so the line has been drawn and I know you will find a way to deal with that. This is a fabulous project. Wish I would have had the finished product when we started our journey. Will email you about the "day we found out".

xo
Cheryl

Liz, Good luck on your endeavor and if you want more support i am here to lead the charge!! Semper-Fi Bob