Day 59 SPOHNC

Support for Persons with Oral, Head and Neck Cancer... who thinks of these names?

So as the queen of self help and support groups, they are trying to start a chapter of SPOHNC on the North Shore and had an organizational meeting ... I couldn't stay away!
I have a few topics to report on from this meeting,
First, some interesting (or not) facts that I learned from the presentation;
OHN Cancer is caused primarily by smoking and drinking, but also by the human papillomavirus. I think most of us have seen the commercial that talks about the link of HPV to cervical cancer. There is also a link to oral cancer. It appears that this is a nasty virus.. that is competely treatable, if you get tested.

More facts; OHN Cancer is also caused by betel quid chewing... google this if you want to know if you are at risk.
When you are under anesthia you have no gag reflex.
As soon as the laser beam is turned off, the radiation is out of your body.
Radiation destroys the dna in the cancer cells, so they can no longer reproduce.
Radiation was first used as a treatment for cancer in 1896.

Anyway, those are a few of the little factiods that I learned in the introduction. During the rest of the meeting I mostly looked around at the other people. I was the youngest "survivor" in the room by at least 10 years, and most of the others were men. I was also the only one with laryngeal cancer, everyone else had tongue, tonsil and salivary gland cancer. While I did not love the whole AA style support group - go around the room and say your name and your issue (I also was uncomfortable using my voice in front of everyone) it was nice to check it out and feel part of a survivor group.