LOST FOR WORDS
Rebecca Patterson, 38, from Nottingham, worried she’d never be able to speak again.
Reclining in the chair, my eyes flicked from one side of the room to the other as the dentist poked around in my mouth. ‘I’m going to refer you for a biopsy,’ he said.
It was 2015, and I’d had the same white patch on my tongue for almost five years.
To be honest, I was pretty unfazed by the whole thing.
It didn’t hurt and you could barely see it.
And when the biopsy returned a diagnosis of oral thrush, I still wasn’t too worried.
I was prescribed medication and the mark soon disappeared. Sorted. Only, the ghostly patch, around two millimetres, returned a month later.
And this time, I decided to leave it, hoping it would sort itself out.
But by November 2017, I was feeling exhausted.
‘You’re looking thinner, too,’ my boyfriend Craig, then 29, remarked.
I’d lost 1st 7lb, but I put it down to stress.
Working with special-needs students in a secondary school, I was under a lot of pressure.
Only by now, the white blemish on my tongue was getting bigger than ever.
By February 2018, my health was deteriorating.
After arriving back home from a holiday in Italy, I felt really sick and couldn’t stop retching.
As I lay on the sofa in pain, I could see bright lights and images
The pain seemed to get worse
above me.
I was hallucinating.
Then the next morning, I noticed two new lumps on my tongue. They were frequently bleeding and becoming more and more painful every day.
Oral thrush back with a vengeance,i thought to myself.
I’d no idea that it could be anything more sinister. I reluctantly restarted another course of medication.
But this time, the patch and the pain didn’t go away. As I packed for an Easter trip to Orkney with Craig, I hoped I could ignore the throbbing sore in my mouth. Even more so when Craig got down on one knee in as we spent some time in our holiday cottage. ‘Rebecca, will you marry me?’ he asked, grinning from ear to ear. On the inside, I was elated. But it didn’t translate outwards. Squirming from the pain, I tried my best to smile.
‘Yes,’ I cried, wishing our special moment wasn’t blighted by this eruption in my mouth. Eating and speaking was becoming more difficult. Deep down, I knew something was seriously wrong by now.
I just didn’t want to admit it to myself, or to Craig.
But I think he knew, too. ‘You
need to go to the doctor,’ Craig told me, seeing how much agony I was in.
On our return, I made an appointment with the doctor and underwent another biopsy.
And in April 2018, I was summoned to King’s Mill Hospital to get the results.
Clenching Craig’s hand, I stared at the consultant’s mouth as we waited to be told.
Breaking her silence, she whispered the one word no one ever wants to hear. ‘Cancer.’ I closed my eyes and shook my head.
I’m going to die, I thought straight away.
‘But we’ve only just got engaged, my life has just started,’ I sobbed into Craig’s arms.
But there wasn’t any time for self-pity.
Conversation quickly turned to the surgery I would need to have at this late stage.
The consultant explained about a pioneering operation which would remove my disease-ridden tongue and construct a new one from the skin on my arm.
Weeks later, dressed in a hospital gown, I was lying there, staring up at the ceiling of the operating theatre at the Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham.
I felt terrified and prayed that this would be the end of my trauma.
After an injection of anaesthetic, the 11-hour operation seemed like nothing more than a snooze.
To the doctors, though, it was hours of concentration.
Removing the skin and the artery from my arm, they built me a new tongue.
As my eyes fluttered open, I turned my head to find Craig gazing down at me.
I smiled and opened my mouth to speak to him.
But I couldn’t utter a word.
In a panic, I let out a strange whimper.
‘It’s OK,’ Craig soothed, stroking my forehead.
Had I lost my voice forever? I thought.
Over the next two weeks, I had to use a whiteboard and pen to communicate with everyone.
Depending completely on the nurses to wash and dress me, I felt totally helpless.
I could only eat pureed food through a tube.
I worried that
I’d end up having to write
‘I do’ on my whiteboard on the day of our wedding!
However, over time my voice slowly came back to me.
Learning to eat, swallow and speak again at 37 was tough. I felt like a baby. But with the support of Craig, my wonderful family, the incredible medical staff and my counselling sessions, I managed to get my life back on track.
Returning to work six months later, I once again regained my independence.
And then, in July last year, I was finally well enough to tie the knot.
Standing with Craig at the altar, feeling every inch the princess, it felt incredible to finally say ‘I do’.
It’s a momentous occasion for anyone to say those two little words in front of everyone, but for me, even more so.
I had triumphed over the disease that had threatened the rest of our lives together.
Now, I’m left with the scars on my arm that offer a glimpse of my story and everything I’ve been through.
Every day, I’m just so grateful. I’m enjoying life as a newly-wed, just as I should be.
My life had only just got started