'Miracle' operation gives Marlene back speech and song
Swaffham woman Marlene Gaunt has had part of her tongue replaced with tissue from her left arm after cancer struck for the second time in her life.
She is so grateful for the skills of surgeons Leo Cheng that she has persuaded fellow members of the Phoenix Singers to hold a fundraising concert in June for the Maxillofacial Unit he heads at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge.
Mrs Gaunt, of 15 Surlingham Drive, a widow in her 60s, now has her speech back and is working on her singing scales so that she can rejoin the Swaffham-based group's ranks.
Twenty-six years ago she had a mastectomy after breast cancer was diagnosed. "That made me look at things differently - you value family and friends, and your health." She said.
For the next ten years she had regular follow-up checks at Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and was given the all clear.
But she become concerned late last year when soreness in her mouth, which she thought was a side effect of bronchitis, persisted.
She saw her dentist, who referred her to a specialist at the QEH and he arranged for her to have biopsies. "Two weeks later I went back to see him and I was stunned when he said it was a cancer," she said.
Mrs Gaunt was referred to Mr Cheng. "He is to approachable and friendly, and a man of great humility," she said.
He told her that he would have take part of her tongue away and reconstruct it using a skin graft from her left arm - which he and his team did in a 12-hour operation in January. Mrs Gaunt's younger sister, Mrs Julia Bowmer, travelled from Derbyshire to be with her as she went into the operating theatre, and was there again when she came out.
"My neck and face were so swollen afterwards, and so heavy that it felt like I had a bus on my shoulders," she recalled.
During the operation, the team also removed lymph glands from her neck, which proved to be benign, and a lump near the collar bone, which was malignant.
"Mr Cheng believes that to be associated with the breast cancer from 26 years ago," Mrs Gaunt said.
Chemotherapy
"I have since had an ultrasound scan of the liver, which was clear, and I'm awaiting the result of a bone density scan. I might need chemotherapy or radiotherapy."
But she remains upbeat, and said: "My main concern was that I wouldn't be able to speak again - just to have the ability to speak was a miracle to me." Mr Cheng and some of his team hope to attend to Friday, June 8, concert by the Phoenix Singers and Lynn Male Voice Choir at Swaffham's Catholic Church.
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