Hi there! I decided to start a blog (hopefully, I'm doing this correctly!) to keep a running update on the tongue situation. FB doesn't seem like an appropriate place to be posting graphic details. Meanwhile, there are a number of people that want to stay informed and I thought a blog might be an efficient and expedient way to accomplish this. :-)

I also want to send out huge hugs to all of my friends. Thank you for listening to me, thank you for offering up a ready ear or a shoulder to cry on, thank you for offering to clean my house, to come visit to take my mind off things, to drive me wherever I need to go, thank you just for thinking about me.......I LOVE you guys!


Okay, so below is a timeline of what has gone on so far..........


Feb 2012 - Sheesh. All I did was chip a crown, for crying out loud. It had a sharp edge, it sliced up the side of my tongue a little bit. No biggie. Really.

Early March 2012 -  I had a temporary crown put it in. The cut did not seem to be healing and started really bothering me every time I ate.

Last week of March 2012 - I went in to have my permanent replacement crown put in. I showed the cut to my dentist and asked her if there was anything I could do to help it heal. Topical antibiotic, some kind of tongue guard, ANYthing. She said not really but that it looked like it was healing and if it wasn't feeling better in 2 weeks to give her a call.

First week of May 2012 - And I waited 4 weeks. My bad. Cut was getting worse rather than better. Started running a low grade fever for a few days, my right ear ached off and on and the right side of my throat felt raw. I called and made an appointment with my primary doctor.

May 15 - Sat in the doctor's waiting room for 2 hours in the middle of a work day. Finally asked at the front desk if they had forgotten about me. Nope. And there were still 2 patients in front of me. Are you kidding me with this?! On top of that desk chickie then said it would probably be just 15 more minutes. Huh? So the doctor only schedules 7.5 minutes with each patient?? Not a lot of value coming out of whatever they're charging my insurance company, if you ask me. AND this is the third time this doctor has left me sitting for 2 hours or longer. Um, take a time management class? Give patients a courtesy call? Let some of your patients go? Something? Really uncool. I asked for my co-pay to be returned and left without getting to see anyone.

May 16 - 17 - Made numerous phone calls looking for a new doctor, finally found one who was accepting new patients. Phew.

May 23 - Met my new doctor, she took one look at my tongue and told me they would make an appointment with an oral surgeon for me and I should hear from them within 3 days.

May 30 - Still no appointment so I called the front desk at the new doctor's office asking if maybe I had misunderstood something and I actually should be making the appt. on my own? Nope, no misunderstanding, they would have made an appointment for me but their new computer system had eaten my referral. They said they would start working on it right away.

June 6 - Still no appointment, called the front desk again, they gave me the phone number to directly call the oral surgeon. Got a hold of them. First available appt. was July 2nd. Made the appt. but was not happy with the wait. Went to see our HR employee, Karen, with a couple of questions about our insurance. Found out that our new insurance doesn't require a referral. OH! Good to know, immediately hopped onto the insurance website and found a different oral surgeon to call.

Meanwhile, was telling Karen that I was having some cancer concerns. I mention this because a number of friends said they didn't see the cancer card coming. I saw it coming, it's the brutal way we deal with cancer that totally floored me!

BTW: I've lost 6 pounds at this point because it hurts so darned much to eat. Got to look for your silver linings wherever you can! :-) 

June 8 - Saw the oral surgeon. Not good news. He said that he didn't like the look of my tongue at all and that he was going to personally call the ear, nose and throat specialist (ENT) to get me an appointment the following week.

June 14 - Both JT and Lisa had their hopes up for me that I would simply walk in and get this thing lopped off. They both offered to come pick me up afterwards in case I was chock full of some good drugs. Alas, it was wishful thinking.........

Saw the ENT, he said yep, you have cancer. He took a slice of the growth to send out for a biopsy but then sped things right along by telling me that I need to go in for surgery where he's going to cut out half my tongue at which point a plastic surgeon will remove a chunk of flesh from my left forearm and graft that into my mouth instead. And then skin will be taken from my inner thigh to graft onto the spot where they took a hunk of flesh. Meanwhile, if things have spread to lymph nodes, then radiation/chemotherapy will be involved as well.

Um wow.

Just wow.


Stopped in at work to give our Office Administrator the scoop because she told me to call her with deets even if I wasn't drugged. Ended up with an audience of 5-6 coworkers. When I mentioned the tongue replacement, good old JT asked if they could all vote to not replace my tongue and leave me unable to talk. Perfect timing for one of his smart ass comments since I was getting a little teary telling the peeps the news. He made me laugh instead. Gotta love him. :-)

Meanwhile, went home and got very, very drunk.

June 15 - Went for a CAT scan at 8:00 am (with one hell of a hangover!) which I think allows them to look at my lymph nodes? Unclear, kind of in shock and just going with the flow at this point.

Went to work after the CAT scan. Decided that maybe it wasn't a bright idea to give coworkers full disclosure. Was being asked off and on all day how I was holding up. Honestly, I was trying not to think about it. Although as my friend, Jen, pointed out, if nobody asked me how I was doing, that probably would have bothered me as well. It's def nice that they care. :-*

Near the end of the day I made the mistake of doing a little Googling. Was wondering about the timing of things, like how long I was going to be in the hospital after surgery, how long does it take for speech therapy to allow me to talk again, how long before I can eat without pain, etc. Ended up not finding anything about timing but learned a lot of other stuff that I would have been better off not knowing. Like the stages of cancer, the estimated survival rates of people with this type of cancer, etc. I'm sorry but at this point, a little ignorance is bliss so I will not be doing any more Googling.

June 16 - And today it's the start of the weekend. Plus I have all of next week off. I was supposed to be going to Cape Cod with my friend, Patilda but she cancelled mid-last week due to bad stuff happening in her own life. Turns out it's just as well we're not going.

So now, it's all about waiting. Waiting to meet with the plastic surgeon next week. Waiting for the CAT scan results to come back. Waiting for the biopsy results to come back.

It's also about worrying. Mostly worrying about my furballs and who will take care of them while I'm in the hospital, while I'm indisposed, if I die. There are other smaller worries but honestly, that's the biggest one. I know, I'm such a sucker for my pets, I can't help it.

So, that's where I'm at. As I get new information, I will post it here. Stay tuned.