Charma Duvenick

We are using this site to keep family and friends updated on my cancer journey and my recovery....please feel free to send to connect with me through here...My story started 11 years ago when I went to the dentist for a white patch on my tongue....I was told I was probably just biting my tongue let’s watch it!! After 6 months of watching it and a move to Missouri I went to a dentist there which immediately sent me to a oral surgeon to have it biopsyed ..long story short I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, and facing a surgery in two days to remove part of my tongue and then immediately after start aggressive chemo and radiation...this all with some tough words from my oncologist! Charma this is a tough cancer to get through you will need to learn to talk again , eat and chances are survival are tough.   There is a 50% chance this will come back in the first two years.  I looked at Dr Westgate ..and said “NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gets to tell me when I get dead, but GOD!!”  I fought, endured, cried , begged to stop, ...but I completed every treatment did not eat solid food for 5 months lost a ton of weight , still talked (without speech therapy) but in the end I did it ...I have been clear of cancer for 11 years...We’ll when I say clear I mean for myself..Cancer seems to these days touch everyone of us...a couple years ago I started another tough excruciating journey with Cancer.... my finance Greg was diagnosed with an advanced form of leukemia and that he would be fighting for his life. After a two year battle with these disease I buried my love and best friend.  I have been on both sides of the page!! Neither are any good....Shortly after thanksgiving this year I started to get ear pain fairly rapidly and Michael and I decided on a Sunday I should head off to urgent care to get it looked at...this small voice in my head was telling me this is it again... I will always  remember the doctors face when he looked in my ear like I was crazy to have so much pain and nothing be there...his exact words you have the cleanest ear I have ever seen !! I immediately knew what this was....CAN CER again!! He told me to wait a week to see if the pain cleared up with some Sudafed! The next morning I made an appointment with an ear nose throat specialist...made an appointment for the following day my sweet tough daughter Alex came with me  to hold my hand...after an examination she founs a tumor or ulcer on the floor of my mouth between my tongue and jaw which she immediately biopsies..She looked me in the eye and said I think you know already but this looks like cancer again.  The next day her suspicions were confirmed I had cancer again!! And I would require surgery to correct it and thought I had had the max chemo and radiation a body could handle but to let the surgeon oncologist determine that. Off to OHSU I go....we meet with Dr Andersen who tells me in the easiest way possible what my surgery will look like...He said we will get this!! Next Friday the 1st of February they will remove my right jaw then remove the cancer from my mouth and then reconstruct my face with a bone from my leg (fibia)....a few months recovery! Please pray for my children family and MichaeI and all my friend...that we have peace and that cancer gets kicked straight in the nuts once and for all I’m done with you!!!!our family believes in the power of prayer , please pray for us!! I love you all big giants too too much as high as the sky!❤️❤️❤️
~Charmie