Father of four and keen gamer, Joe was only 27 when he was told he had mouth cancer.

“I had an ulcer that I’d had on the side of my tongue that kept coming and going.

"But it was only there for sort of a couple of weeks and then disappeared. Looking back now, it was probably more evident with everything I know, but at the time it's just just an ulcer that kept coming and going.

“I went to the dentist for a normal check, but my regular dentist was off sick. So, I saw a stand in dentist, who just happened to be his wife. She'd been retired for two or three years and had come back to the practice that day to fill in, and she had a briefing by the practice manager in the morning and was told about Mouth Cancer Awareness Week, which it just happened to be the first day of Mouth Cancer Awareness Week. 

“I was the first patient that morning, she looked in my mouth and saw that I had a scar

rather than an actual ulcer at that time and then said ‘we are going to have to refer you

to the hospital for this because we've got to refer so many patients this week since it’s Mouth Cancer Awareness Week’.

“I took that fine, filling quotas, whatever, on I go. Went to hospital a few days later and saw the consultant registrar there who said not to worry about it but they’d do a biopsy whilst I was there.

“And then five days later I walked into a room full of doctors and that's when I realised that it probably was something. It’s not what I expected." 

Joe also spoke about how it felt after he was told the news.

“Everything after that is pretty much sort of a blur of words. I can't remember everything that was said or discussed and I think I was a bit numb to it. I think I felt numb to it right up until the point when I went in for my surgery. That's I think the first point when I sat down and I realised I've got cancer.

“It’s the uncertainty and not knowing what's going to happen. Living or dying is one thing, but wondering ‘is the meal that I've just had the last meal I'll actually eat properly? And was that last conversation I'm going to have with my normal voice?’ It’s things like that.

“And I think everybody, in particular people my age, we were all very much like ‘we're going to live forever, nothing can hurt us’, I was only 27, when it happened. I think it hit a lot of them and made themselves kind of take stock and kind of go well actually that could have been any of us.”

Joe underwent surgery to remove the cancer from his tongue, followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which he still experiences some side effects from.

“I have a lot of problems with my neck muscles and my shoulder muscles which I'm on constant pain killers for, physiotherapy and everything, but that's just one of the side effects. 

When I had my cancer, I was told that because I was having chemotherapy I wouldn't be able to have kids and I've got four now so that worked out quite well.”

Now, 12 years after his diagnosis, Joe is one of our most active mouth cancer ambassadors. He regularly volunteers to do media interviews and attend events for Mouth Cancer Action Month.