Hey everyone! I'm Matt, 36 year old male from North Carolina with OSCC of the tongue. Smoked for a very short time 5 years ago (less than a year and only roughly 1 cigar twice a week), no real use of alcohol, in fairly good shape, just got dealt a bad hand it seems. I got diagnosed by my local ENT on 14 March after having a lesion on the right side of my tongue for over a year. My dentist kept blaming it on me biting my tongue in my sleep but I felt something was wrong and decided to self refer to the ENT. I went to MD Anderson in Houston on 17 April and had surgery to remove the tumor (Stage 1) and have been healing pretty well from the partial glossectomy. Now I've just got to make it through the next couple of years of CT/PET Imaging to make sure nothing comes back. Decided to join a support forum to possibly give some first hand experience to others that may have to go through the same surgery I did.

Hi Matt,

Welcome to OCF and thank you for sharing your experience. Many wonderful people here that contribute and help each other. Oral cancer is kind of an unknown amongst the general public. I had never heard of tongue cancer until my Head and Neck doctor confirmed it. I had only heard of throat cancer and ignorantly thought it was tied to heavy smoking.

Glad you are doing well and took it upon yourself to get this checked out. My first dentist didnt really raise the alarm bells with me either and it was about a year of my knowing something was going on before I saw a new dentist due to switching insurance. My second dentist jumped all over it.

Best,
Nels