Allison’s Story

Site created on June 20, 2022

Welcome to Allison’s CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. 

Allison was originally diagnosed with oral tongue SCC in December of 2019.   She had surgery to remove the tumor in Jan 2020 at Mayo in Rochester, MN. She continued to monitor it and was doing well until March of this year when she started to have mild pain and tightness in the tongue. She began the process of investigating a diagnosis which lead her here. 

She currently has what appears to be T3 oral tongue cancer along the posterior edge of her previous resection with one enlarged lymph node. She will return to Mayo on June 22nd for additional testing and surgery to remove the tumor (and most likely the lymph node). Surgery will be followed by radiation and most likely chemo. She has a hard journey ahead but she knows and is thankful for a strong support system who can come around the family and help care for them as they support her healing. 5 out of 6 of them caught COVID for the first time last week, including Kip and Allison’s baby who is about 12 weeks old so everyone is feeling the need for some love and support during this time.  Thank you in advance for your support. I’ll provide updates as I’m able, as well as share meals and childcare needs, here. 

-Sarah Burke

Newest Update

Journal entry by Sarah Burke

We wanted to drop in and give you guys an update on Allison’s progress. She is a little over 12 weeks post treatment and had her scans last week. The great news is the scans showed no evidence of metastasis. The scans showed some activity on her tongue. The doctors think this is due to continued healing in the area but she will repeat the scans in 3 months to be sure. She had to have her feeding tube replaced last week but she’s working towards weaning off of it. She’s able to eat smoothies and pudding, etc reasonably well and is working on increasing the solid soft foods she’s able to consume. Her speech continues to progress and her energy levels are increasing. She still has to rest often and listen to her body but she has been enjoying the ability to do some light exercise. 

We are continually thankful for your support and friendship. We hope you have a great holiday and we’ll update you all in the new year, once she repeats her scans. 

Sarah Burke 
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