Diagnosis
Your mouth is just as important as any other part of your body so if you find anything unusual please go to your dentist. Know your normal. It’s really important that you go for your regular check-ups so your dentist knows your mouth and they will notice anything untoward. If you don’t have a dentist, go to your GP practice.
I had a very small lump, about the size of a pea in the side of my mouth which I could feel with my tongue. I actually saw a campaign on the telly which was talking about mouth cancer and said if you found an unusual lump in your mouth then go and get it checked.
To be perfectly honest I very nearly didn’t go to my appointment as I felt stupid because I thought I didn’t fit the criteria. Although I smoked, I didn’t drink and I wasn’t old. I was only 24.
Her GP initially thought Jackie had blocked salivary glands, and sent her to then Southern General Hospital in Glasgow to have it checked and they suspected the same. They told her they could remove it if she wanted and, as it was annoying her, she agreed.
The mother of three said:
They took the lump out under a local anaesthetic and sent it away to the pathology labs and I didn’t think anymore about it.
A GP then got in touch and I was told they wanted to see me straight away for a further operation to take a bigger sample, but I was still thinking it wasn’t anything bad.
I went back to the hospital maybe a week after the operation as I had an infection in the wound and I was in pain. I was on my own and I was told they had the test results and that they’d found cancerous cells in the tissue. It was all surreal. I was like ‘Oh my God!’