Mayfield cancer survivor urges people to get sores checked out
4/16/2007 Gloversville, NY Richard Nilsen The Leader-Herald (www.leaderherald.com) Sharlee Ringer of Mayfield said she hopes by telling her story she may be able to help someone. Ringer, a 35-year-old married mother of five who is active in the community, recently had part of her tongue removed and was having her tonsils removed today in an effort to stop the spread of the oral cancer she was diagnosed with Jan. 27. “I had noticed a lesion on my tongue last April, but I thought it was just a cold sore,” Ringer said. Ringer questioned if the cold sore was something more when it didn’t go away. But since she has never smoked or been exposed to other typical things that lead to oral cancer, she put off having the sore looked at. “When I finally got an appointment to have it removed, I had to postpone due to a respiratory infection,” she said. Each delay could worsen the condition, but at 35 and with no history of smoking, she didn’t imagine the problem could be cancer. “When the doctor called me in to a conference room to discuss the lesion he had removed, I knew it was cancer,” she said. The sore was found to be squamous cell carcinoma, the most common form of oral cancer. Ringer said she wanted to tell her story in order to make others aware. April is National Cancer Control Month. She said she’d like to get the word out because it is difficult to get [...]