Hola mi nombre es Valentina tengo 43 a�os he sido operada de c�ncer de lengua y me han sacado los ganglios del lado izquierdo del cuello felizmente el resultado de los ganglios fue negativo pero me dicen que este tipo de c�ncer es muy infiltraste por lo que me van a tratar con radioterapia y est�n evaluando la posibilidad de darme quimioterapia para complementar el tratamiento, en dosis bajas de una vez por semana.
Estoy aterrada, no puedo dormir, lloro muy a menudo y siento que la lengua se me esta hinchando, necesito compartir con alg�n grupo de apoyo, siento que no puedo manejarlo sola y no se donde acudir.

Por favor me gustar�a saber si para el c�ncer de lengua, es efectivo complementar la radioterapia con la quimioterapia pese a estar en grado 1,algunos me dicen que para este tipo de enfermedad la quimioterapia no es efectiva Agradecer� mucho su opinion sobre el tema.

Me gustar�a contactarme con personas que hable Espa�ol y compartir experiencias.

Hola yo estoy atravesando por una situaci�n similar y me han recomendado combinar la radioterapia con una dosis semanal de quimioterapia en dosis bajas, para maximizar los efectos del tratamiento. Espero que alguien me entienda en espa�ol .

Hola, Valentina. Hablo espa�ol bastante bien -- entiendo bien lo que usted ha dicho. Yo tambien hice radioterapia con quimioterapia (despu�s de la cirug�a). Llevo cuatro a�os "cancer-free" -- todo va bien. Si usted tiene alguna pregunta que necesite hacer en espa�ol, me puede mandar un mensaje aqu�. ?Cu�l es su diagnosis? Si lo escribe bajo su nombre en el "post," todos nosotros en el "forum" entonces le podremos ayudar.

Hola, Valentina �
Es bueno que usted descubri� el c�ncer en una etapa no muy avanzada y por eso hay mucho mejor tasa de �xito. Mi hijo tambi�n ten�a el c�ncer de la lengua de la etapa 2, hace mas de 6 a�os y ahora esta haciendo muy bien. Despu�s de la cirug�a, tambi�n su lengua se esta hinchando y ten�a dificultad hablar pero solamente para muy poco tiempo. El pas� a la cirug�a y despu�s, solamente a la radioterapia, pero no a la quimioterap�a. Complet� 28 tratamientos de radioterapia en diciembre de �06 (vea baja de mi nombre). Yo comprendo como dif�cil es de no pensar a todas las cosas negativas, pero trata a pensar m�s a las cosas positivas. Es bueno si puede estar ocupada con otras actividades. D�gale a su m�dico c�mo se siente y quiz�s el(ella) podr�a darle algo para ayudarle.

Si usted le gustar�a escribir algo debajo de su firma, s�lo tiene que ir a la parte superior de esta p�gina donde dice "my stuff� (mis cosas) y haga clic en "edit profile� (editar perfil) y hasta el fondo de l a p�gina hay una caja donde se puede insertar lo que quiere acerca de su tratamiento. Espero que todo vaya muy bien con su tratamiento y que puede sentirse mucho mejor muy pronto.

I as an Administrator do not feel comfortable with non English posts as I am unable to determine what advice is being asked for and more importantly what advice is given on this site which is part of my responsibility that I have agreed to as an Administrator and I don't have the time to translate. I also do not want to discourage non English speaking people in need of this site's wisdom from posting so does anyone have a recommendation?

I wondered about that, too, David. We are fortunate here in having administrators who are vigilant in making sure that any advice asked for is completely understandable and any suggestions given are absolutely accurate. In order to do that I can see how crucial it is in having an accurate translation to work with and the time to do it.

Ideally, it would take someone whose native language is Spanish to translate from Spanish to English but with a medical background, and experience with oral cancer, although there are some very helpful advanced bi-lingual or Tri-lingual medical dictionaries available at University libraries for use by those without a medical background. (I made successful use of them when doing some French to English translations in psychological case histories for a Psych prof before retiring from UT). I have some knowledge and experience in Spanish but my own native background is French. However, here are my thoughts:

1) Maybe there are some Spanish speakers on this forum that would have the time to translate from Spanish to English and so that the administrators would know what help or suggestions the poster needed?

2) The Administrator could write a reply and then a native Spanish speaker could translate to English?

3) Or maybe there is a totally Spanish language support group for Oral Cancer for her someplace or in her country or at hospital she is associated with?

I was so touched by the plea of the original poster that I wrote what I thought might encourage her to keep going and survive her ordeal with OC. Here is my English summary of what she said: She is 43, was operated for tongue cancer and they removed some lymph nodes from her neck which were negative. She was going to be treated with radiation and that they were evaluating the possibility of also doing chemotherapy. She is very frightened, cries, can�t sleep and feels like her tongue is swollen. She feels she cannot do this alone and needs to share and get some support. To summarize my reply: I told her that it was good the cancer was caught at an early stage, told her about my son�s successful recovery that he also had a swollen tongue that only lasted a short time and I suggested she talk to her doctor about how she is feeling in case he/she could suggest something that would help her.

My suggestions 1 and 2 do seem time-consuming. Perhaps someone else has better ideas? Or has time to do some translations if needed by the Administrators?

Anne-Marie,
David and I spend many hours a day, every single day of our own time volunteering to monitor the forum. I cant see one of us devoting any more of our own time to interpreting non-English posts. We already have some major responsibilities with just watching the forum and guarding it against the scammers.

This is a difficult situation. Its unusual for the OCF forum to be unable to help someone. Thats what we do best and it stinks not being able to help this person.

This situation would be something Brian will decide when he has a free moment.


As a temporary fix, maybe this situation is something that could be communicated with this new member thru PM's?

In terms of quickly spotting spam/scam information and such, you could always copy and paste foreign-language posts into Google Translate, http://translate.google.com/, which -- while not perfect -- does give a pretty good rendition of what the original poster wrote. (I do not speak Spanish at all, and did that -- out of curiosity -- with Valentina's posts, which were just as Anne-Marie noted.) It's also really fast.

English-language replies could be run through Google Translate into the original poster's language (perhaps with an initial sentence along the lines of "This reply was translated into [language] by Google Translate" to explain what are likely odd grammatical quirks and such) and then posted -- or perhaps both the English reply and the foreign-language reply could be included in the post.

Admins could also request, when they see a foreign-language post, that any further posts from that person be run through Google Translate into English and then posted.

The main page of the OCF site does offer a Google Translate button to translate pages on the site, so this may be an issue that will come up more frequently on these boards -- as people whose first language isn't English see reports that mention OCF and check out the site. I am sure that Michael Douglas's comments about oral sex received attention from media worldwide in many languages -- and since a number of those articles cited OCF, I expect that brought the site a number of overseas visitors.