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| Date Entered at Shared Experience: 11/14/2005 |
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MOUTH |
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My dad was diagnosed with cancer on his tongue in May 2004. He had laser surgery to remove it and then 10 months later it came back. He was back in surgery in May 2005, a year to the day after his first visit. This time however, it was major surgery lasting 10 hours. It involved removing half of his tongue and replacing it with skin from his wrist. The skin on his wrist was then replaced with skin from the inner forearm which was then stitched back together. When we first saw him in intensive care it was horrendous, I just wanted to walk away. This was my dad and he was supposed to protect me, now it was my turn to help him. As an only child I found it very difficult to cope and I felt no-one could understand how I felt. I had to take time off work as I could not concentrate on anything and wanted to be at the hospital for visiting hours each day.
Dad was unable to speak for the first week due to having a tracheoctamy which was not a very pretty sight but he did not bother writing anything down he just tried to speak and ended up sounding like Darth Vader which was actually quite amusing.
I have to say that the care dad received was excellent and his consultant is really nice and easy to talk to. He explained everything about the operation in great detail, maybe too much at times. Also all the nurses on the ward and in the clinic were really nice and although they were only doing their job I will be eternally grateful to each and every one of them.
You only have one dad and I can tell you that mine has always been pretty special (I always was a daddy's girl), but after coming so close to losing him I really appreciate him now.
I hope my experience will help others in the same situtation and give them hope. Please contact me if you need to talk cos I could have certainly done with someone at the time.
I only hope that the current campaign by cancer reasearch UK will heighten awareness to mouth cancer and hopefully provide more support to both the patient and their family/friends.
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N/A |
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Major Surgery, 10 hours. |
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Dad is now back at work and doing really well. Has some trouble swallowing food but still getting out and about and enjoying life. REALLY HATES SMOKING. Despite having smoked for about 40 years himself. |
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None really available |
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I really hope my experience can help others in their time of need. |
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