My husband was just diagnosed with Squamous Carcinoma (in his tongue). He is having a CATSCAN on Monday and seeing a Dr. Paul Kedeshian at UCLA on Tuesday, March 6th to see if the cancer is anywhere else besides his tongue. Does anyone know of this Dr. and/or have a recommendation of an expert Dr. in this field that he should see? We live in Southern, CA and could go anywhere in Ventura, Los Angles or Orange County. Any advice you could give regarding Dr

I had surgery for SCC of tongue 5 months ago at UCLA. My Dr. was Dr. Joel Sercarz, along with Dr. Keith Blackwell who did reconstruction of my tongue because of the size of the tumor.

I feel that the Dr.'s at UCLA are great, but don't know anything about any other specific Dr.'s. I was impressed with the H&N Department, and the entire facility.

I had the cancer removed, and almost 1/2 of my tongue. Because so much was removed, they reconstructed my tongue with tissue taken from my left forearm (called a free flap), which was in turn covered with skin grafted from my left thigh. I also had a modified radical dissection of all the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. My nodes were all negative for cancer, so my prognosis is very good. No further treatment is planned - Had no radiation or chemo.

They will check my tongue this month to see if it needs to be trimmed for better speech. My speech is almost back to normal already, but the "new" tongue is probably a little larger than it could be, so think they will end up trimming it at some point. I was never completely unable to talk, but right after the surgery the tongue filled up my mouth so it was pretty garbled, but understandable. It has rapidly improved. Already, people who don't know me say they didn't notice anything until I mentioned it. I feel like it sounds like I have gum in my mouth.

My scars are healing beautifully - I am amazed at how well. I have been able to eat since a week after the surgery - eat about anything I want - some things irritate my tongue a little, but nothing has been unbearable.

My neck is recovering great, too. They removed a muscle, so there is some tiredness, aching sometimes, but I have full range of motion of both my head and my arm/shoulder. I have most of the feeling back on that side (was somewhat numb from ear to shoulder.

All in all, I feel totally blessed to have had my treatment at UCLA and at the miraculous recovery potential of our bodies.

You are welcome to contact me via email for more specifics.

Rhonda

Dear Tamara, we know you are scared out of your mind about this diagnosis. Is Dr. K. and Head and Neck Cancer specialist? That is important. There is a list of Head and Neck Cancer Specialists on this site that you can check out. You will need to keep your wits about you over the next weeks, as you get more imput from his tests and Docs. Take a notebook or a tape recorder to every appointment you all have and take good notes.Get someone else to go with you if possible because you will likely get information that is way over your head to comprehend.[the more ears, the better].You have found a group here that can help you both every step of the way, so stick with us and you both will get through this. Amy in the Ozarks

Tamara,
UCLA is a CCC so you have made a good choice. Are you going to Johnson or Norris? Norris appears to have a comprehensive head & neck program according to their website. City of Hope would be worth investigating as well. Loma Linda, which is So. Cal. as well offers PBT, the only west coast facility to do so and one of 5 operational in the US today. http://www.llu.edu/proton/

For future reference we try not to mention specific doctors names publicly on the site for the sake of their privacy.