Pawel Chmura was convinced that he was simply prone to sore throats more than normal. Until the thirty-year-old faced the facts.
Repeated sore throats and no serious leads
“The year before I was diagnosed with oral cancer, I was having problems with my tonsils,” Pawel explains in an article published on the Manchester Evening News website. Every time he returned from vacation, the young man of Polish origin who lives in England suffered from angina. “You can’t take antibiotics indefinitely without starting to ask yourself questions,” he says with great hindsight. This is why, tired of a series of infections, he first turned to his general practitioner. But the tests and samples that were then given to him yielded nothing. Convinced otherwise, Pawel will have to insist for months, moving from office to office before finally being referred to an infectious disease specialist. This is how at the beginning of 2024, a suspicious anomaly was detected on an MRI. “When I got a call to discuss the results, the specialist said, ‘Your tonsils are in good condition, but we found something in the image that I think you should talk to another specialist about,'” Pawel recalls.
“Unfortunately, it’s cancer”
“I was prescribed an ultrasound and a fine needle biopsy, but due to the location of the lump, which was under the tongue and quite close to the jaw, they were unable to perform the biopsy,” says the young man. “Worried at this stage”, Pawel will not count his efforts and, guided by his intuition, will decide to turn to a surgeon specializing in oral problems. After a procedure, the famous lump is removed from his mouth and sent for analysis. Two weeks later, it is “very optimistic” that Pawel goes to his follow-up appointment. “I thought everything would be fine. But when I went in and saw the doctor and the nurse, I immediately felt that something was wrong. We sat down and they said to me: ‘Look, unfortunately, it’s cancer.'” The young man, then 32 years old, barely had time to digest the information, since a major surgery to remove the cancerous tumor was immediately scheduled. Removal of the floor of the mouth, cervical resection, forearm tissue grafting, tracheotomy to manage postoperative edema: the surgeons are doing everything they can to save Pawel.
A risk of recurrence
After spending several days in intensive care, Pawel was able to return to work three months after the operation, still with the fear of a recurrence: “This type of cancer means that I have to have annual check-ups and, in my specific case, the risk of recurrence in the lungs is quite high. So, even if it is not my main concern, it is always present”, he confides a year after his diagnosis. If he wants to tell his story, it’s because Pawel knows how difficult this type of cancer can be to diagnose. According to the MSD Manual, mouth and throat cancers can appear as open sores, growths, or discolored areas in the mouth, which requires extra care.
