We have a new Facebook page! The International Oral Cancer Association would like to thank all of our supporters and invite you all to follow us over to our new Facebook page. Be sure to Like our new page and follow our website (www.fightoralcancer.org) to get instant updates about our latest news and events!

Here at the International Oral Cancer Association, our mission is to help people in their fight against oral cancer, and to find other people who are doing the same thing. Today we are very excited to share some information about a wonderful organization, the Cleaning for A Reason Foundation.

This foundation provides “free professional housecleaning, and maid services to improve the lives of women undergoing treatment for cancer – any type of cancer.” This must be such a relief to women struggling to take care of their families at the same time that they are fighting cancer.

The Cleaning for a Reason Foundation’s website is packed full of information about their organization and how you can help them with their mission. The site also has a section to request cleaning services for a cancer patient. They can’t help everyone, but it can’t hurt to see if they will be able to help you or a friend in your time of need.

If you have an organization or business that provides free services or support for cancer patients please contact us with more information. The International Oral Cancer Association would love to help you make people aware of additional support for cancer patients.

We hope that this information will help some of our readers. Let us know what you think in the comments section below!

My name is Caprice and my story is about the most amazing, loving, selfless dad that ever walked the earth.

My Dad Paul Joseph SR Letourneau fought this HORRIFIC disease for abt 4 years total. He had bit the side of his tongue and there was a white soar on the side of his tongue that gradually was getting bigger and he was not one to ‘worry’ anyone so he failed to mention it, thinking it was just infected and he could take care of it without anyone knowing….WELL, about 6 months passed and by now it was the size of a quarter and now he was puzzled and worried…SO he went to the doctor and they did a biopsy and came back CANCER ! He fought and did EVERYTHING he was supposed to, all the horrible treatments and large amounts of medication. But he eventually lost his long and painful battle on April 10, 2010 at 9:09 pm with his family by his side. It was so awful to watch the man you love with all your heart slowly and painfully die a little more everyday. SO what I am saying is PLEASE, DO NOT WAIT TO SEE A DR. if you see anything out of the ‘norm’. IT CAN BE PREVENTED and it caused (mainly) by excessive drinking/smoking and there are many other ways of contracting it as well. SO , IT CAN BE PREVENTED AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH OR PUT YOUR FAMILY THROUGH THIS IF YOU STAY ON TOP OF THINGS…..MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU HEALTHY !!!! Always remember that everyday is a blessing and when you asre on top of things (healthwise) you will have many many more years ahead of you and will not have to suffer the worst pain that I have ever witnessed in my life.
Sincerely,

- Caprice Letourneau

In February 2009, I was eating breakfast and noticed that it hurt my mouth to eat. I went to the mirror to find the source of the pain. I found a small hard lump on the floor of my mouth. I contacted a dentist and got in right away. He said I needed a biopsy ASAP. I went to an ENT who gave me antibiotics to get rid of what he thought was infection, but it did not help. I then had a CT scan and nothing showed up, but I was put on three more weeks of antibiotics for a sinus infection. Next, I went to an Oral Surgeon who told me to return in a month. By this time it was the beginning of April and it had gotten worse.  I contacted the ENT and told him that I had also developed ear pain. He saw me right away and we scheduled surgery for April 30th.

After he performed the surgery he told us that he did not believe it was cancer, but sent it off anyway. We got the report back a few days later and it was cancer. I was then sent in for more surgery to make sure it was all taken out. I had a PET scan in July and all was clear.

In September 2009, I began to have ear pain again and we watched it for a month. In October I had a another lump on the back of my tongue. We scheduled surgery and it was cancer again and more aggressive than the first. Thus began chemotherapy and radiation. I completed treatment February 1, 2010 after spending time in the hospital due to complications of radiation. I am now anxiously awaiting my next PET scan in two weeks. I am still having ear pain, throat pain, and tongue pain and still cannot eat by mouth, but I do have a PEG tube.

I was 31 when I was diagnosed and am 32 now.  I have never been a smoker, drinker nor have I done drugs. I do not have HPV. Oral cancer can hit anyone. Make sure you go see your dentist and make him/her do oral cancer screenings. They are very important and can save your life.

Baylor Hospital in Plano hosts an Oral/Head & Neck Cancer Support Group once a month.  This month Dr. Lee Fitzgerald and Arma Fitzgerald will be discussing oral cancer and the Fight Oral Cancer Foundation.  The group will be held today, March 2, 2010 at 6:00pm.

This group is a part of the SPOHNC group that we participated in a fundraising event in September of 2009.

Visit the Baylor Health Group page for more information on the support group.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Knowing is half the battle and knowing early gives you a better chance at victory!  At your next dental appointment ask your dentist for an oral cancer exam.  Many dentists are making this a routine part of every dental examination, so you’ll want to make sure that you are receiving this service with each dental examination.

For those that have not had an oral cancer exam recently, there is also an oral cancer quiz that you can take that might shed some light on the situation.  According to Medical News Today:

Having regular dental exams is the most important step, but knowing what to look for between check-ups is also critical.

Cigna Healthcare provides a short quiz that will test your knowledge on oral cancer.  Click here to view the oral cancer quiz.

Knowing is half the battle.

“Together we fight oral cancer. Together we save a life every hour.“

My dad is an oral cancer survivor and I would like to share his story.

Diagnosis. In 1987 my father was diagnosed with oral cancer. He was having pain in his jaw and thought his wisdom tooth was bothering him. He had a dental exam and panoramic X-ray taken and the dentist saw something abnormal in his jaw bone. They did a biopsy and the results were frightening. It was oral cancer.

Surgery. They wasted no time and he had surgery within 2 weeks. They removed his jaw bone to the center of his chin and removed some soft tissue as well. He went through radiation treatment afterwards.

Aftermath. The months following were harder than the surgery for my father and the family. He was angry because he could not work the way he had and the way he wanted. Nothing was the same.  His taste was different, the feeling on his face wasn’t the same, and he had to adjust to not having teeth on right side of his mouth. We  were able to find the help of a support group of people who were going through the same sort of treatment.

Cancer Free. I am proud to say that my dad survived oral cancer.  It was hard and frightening, but he did it. He has been cancer free for 23 years and counting. I wanted to tell his story to let people know it can be done. You can beat this disease with courage, strength, and most of all support and love. You can’t give up.

For almost a year, prior to having any visible sign that anything was wrong, I had intermittent pain on the left side of my tongue when I would eat or drink. I would check my tongue every 2-3 weeks to find the cause for the pain, but didn’t find anything. I even had several health care providers look at it, and they never saw anything either. I was a smoker, though a late starter, and not a heavy one. Most of my doctors have agreed that smoking was not my cause. I am also and never have been a drinker.

Found a Cancer Spot

The day that I found the lesion eating had been exceptionally painful, and I told myself on the way to the mirror that if I didn’t find anything this was the last time I would check. And there it was, a white patch with a hole in the center. It had not been there 2-3 weeks before. I asked our physician’s assistant what it was as soon as he came out of the room he was in. He said he didn’t know, but I should see an oral surgeon to have it checked. Two days later I saw the oral surgeon who said if it didn’t go away in a week he would do a biopsy. It didn’t go away and on September 26, 2006 I was told I had cancer. I was 28, my son was 3.

Removing the Cancer

On October 12, 2006 they removed the left quarter of my tongue. Prior to surgery I had tried to tell the doctors that it was growing fast. They reassured me that it was not and that after surgery I would be as good as new. No chemo. No radiation. After the surgery, they told me that I was right, it was aggressive and they could see how much it had grown from the week before. The new plan was radiation, but they HAD gotten all the cancer in the surgery.

Radiation

Five days a week for five and half weeks I went for radiation. Though I could not eat or drink due to the radiation, I was not given or offered a feeding tube. I continuously vomited mucus. When I asked for help I was told I was “par for the course” and there was nothing they could do. The day my aunt had to remove my naked self from my bathtub because I was too weak, I wrote (wrote because it was too painful to speak) to the doctor that if he couldn’t euthanize me there was nothing he could do for me. They stopped radiation for a few days after that. My last day of radiation they told me that I was essentially cancer free the day of my surgery and that radiation was just to make sure. I recovered, went back to work, and had my 1st PET scan in May ’07. I was told the area that lit up was just due to radiation.

The Return

On December 1, 2007 I woke up with a golf ball sized lump under my left jaw. The doctor I worked for sent me to my surgeon that day. They did a fine needle aspiration that day and even though they stuck me 3 times it was negative. The surgeon put me on antibiotics and told me to come back and have a CT scan in 1 week if the meds didn’t make it go away. When I returned the following week he sent me to the dentist to see if he could find a cause. He couldn’t, so off I went for the CT scan. Then back to his office. When we got back to his office they ushered me back into the biopsy room. This time my husband and I knew by the change in the doctor after he looked at the microscope. It was back. They didn’t officially tell me until the next day. The following week I had a PET scan, tumor board meeting, and surgery.

On December 20, 2007 I had a modified neck dissection. In order to get all the cancer they had to scrape the jaw bone. The cancer was in the soft tissue, nerve channels, and in 4 of the 6 lymph nodes they removed. They said they got it all, again. Their oncologist told me that I had a 50% chance of keeping the cancer away for a year. I changed to a different oncologist who was willing to do anything to increase my odds.

Complications

Unfortunately, this is not the end but only the half way point. Several weeks after my surgery, I developed bubbles on the incision. They burst and we went to the ER. They told me to come back and see my surgeon in 2 days. He admitted me on the spot and they treated me for an abscess for 5 days before figuring out that I really had a fistula. A fistula is a hole from one part of the body to another. During the surgery they had created a hole from my mouth to my neck. The only way to treat this was to eat and drink only via a feeding tube until the hole healed. At dinnertime without any chance to eat, they placed the nasal feeding tube. This was replaced by a PEG tube (a tube that goes directly into your stomach through your abdomen) which is better for long term use. With the plan to eventually do radiation again this was the best option. During the procedure to place the tube, I woke up twice as they were pushing it through my abdomen. Needless to say, I was extremely traumatized.

After the fistula healed I began chemotherapy and a drug called Erbitux. After the 1st treatment caused vomiting, the hole reopened. The surgeon told me that I had to stop eating and use the feeding tube indefinitely. I decided this was a quality of life issue and did not comply. And later found out that if I had given up food the fistula would have never healed anyway.

After 2 rounds of chemo I ended up back in the hospital. I had bled out and needed 5 bags of blood and 3 bags of platelets over a 5 day period. The doctors wanted to know where I got my spirit from. I could not leave my son without a mother. My family and my son were and still are my spirit.

Next, they discovered that the radiation from the 1st time around had caused osteoradionecrosis of the jaw. This literally means the radiation killed my jawbone. This meant there could never be anymore radiation ever. After chemotherapy ended, I began hyperbaric oxygen treatment to try and heal this. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment requires you to lay in a glass chamber where they pump your body full of 100% oxygen over a 2hr period. You cannot take anything in the chamber with you; any spark could cause a massive explosion. I did this 5 days a week for 2 months but it did not help.

On October 14, 2009 they removed the dead area of my jawbone and replaced it with part of my fibula (leg bone). Recovery was slow but I am doing better now. And if someone told me tomorrow that the cancer was back, I would do all of this again. There are lasting effects from each stage of this journey but nothing that I can’t live with.

My husband has been absolutely wonderful through all of this. He is an excellent learn-on-the-spot nurse. My family has been extremely supportive. There is definitely a silver lining in the cancer cloud. For the most part, it has renewed my faith in people. And I have been able to spend so much time with my son that I would not have had if I didn’t have cancer. He is 6 now. I am almost 32. I’ve included all the gory details of my story because I want people to know that I made it through and so can they. I also want to help increase awareness, especially among non-smoking, non-drinking women age 25-45, as this is the fastest growing group to face diagnosis with this type of cancer. I used to get crabby about all the attention that breast cancer got while I was facing a deadlier cancer but since then I have accepted that all cancers need any attention they can get.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share my story and hopefully help someone in the process.

Click here for a news article written about Pamela’s story.

*****

Together we fight oral cancer. Together we save a life every hour.