Tara Hanley was used to being the nurse — not the patient.

In this episode, Tara joins Barbara to share her journey from a persistent tongue ulcer and repeated biopsies to eventually hearing the words: “It’s cancer.”

As a public health nurse and mum of two young children, Tara talks candidly about trying to stay positive for everyone around her while privately confronting her own fears. She shares how she prepared her children for surgery, why she recorded herself reading their favourite stories before treatment, and what it was like returning to work and everyday life afterwards.

They also explore the parts of recovery that others don’t always see: scanxiety, lymphoedema, changes to eating and speech, survivor guilt, and the strange experience of everyone else moving on while you’re only beginning to process what happened.

Warm, funny and deeply relatable, this is a conversation about becoming the patient, finding your new normal and recognising that you don’t have to have had the “worst” cancer experience for it to have changed your life.

If you’ve been diagnosed with tongue cancer (or are supporting someone who has), you can find help here:

🌍 Website

🤝 Join support groups & mailing list: via the website

💌 Contact us: podcast@youngtonguesglobal.com

We’re building this with our community — and you can be part of it:

✨ Volunteer & share your experience

🎙️ Apply to appear on the podcast

🧠 Take part in research opportunities

We’re a small charity with a big mission — and we rely on community support to keep going.

👉 Find out more how to make a donation or fundraise for us here

Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Mailing List

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when an everyday cold meets a body that’s been through tongue cancer treatment?

With Barbara away, Stef and Jamie have been left in charge of the podcast — which may or may not have been a terrible decision.

After Stef is struck down by a particularly nasty cold, they get talking about something that probably feels very familiar to many people in the Young Tongues community: being ill after treatment just isn’t the same as it was before.

Dry mouth gets drier. Swallowing becomes harder. Coughing, sneezing and clearing phlegm can suddenly become a logistical operation. Medication isn’t always easy to take. And when familiar pains return — particularly around the ear, jaw or neck — an innocent virus can also bring some very unwelcome thoughts about recurrence.

Stef and Jamie talk candidly about the long-term realities of treatment, invisible side effects, fatigue, learning to give yourself permission to rest, and why friends and family may not always understand just how much effort goes into appearing “normal.”

There are also saline sprays, emotional-support water bottles, disastrous food choices, humidifier experiments, “mouth lube” and considerably more discussion of bodily functions than Barbara would probably have authorised.

It’s honest, occasionally gross, surprisingly funny and ultimately a reminder of why we talk about this stuff in the first place.

Because however weird the side effect, however ridiculous the situation, and however many years it’s been since treatment — chances are, another Young Tongue gets it.

If you’ve been diagnosed with tongue cancer (or are supporting someone who has), you can find help here:

🌍 Website

🤝 Join support groups & mailing list: via the website

💌 Contact us: podcast@youngtonguesglobal.com

We’re building this with our community — and you can be part of it:

✨ Volunteer & share your experience

🎙️ Apply to appear on the podcast

🧠 Take part in research opportunities

We’re a small charity with a big mission — and we rely on community support to keep going.

👉 Find out more how to make a donation or fundraise for us here

Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Mailing List

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week on The Young Tongues Podcast, Dr Patrick Ha helped us understand the science behind adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) – an incredibly rare form of cancer that can affect the tongue.

This week, we hear what it can actually mean to live through it.

Barbara is joined by Young Tongues member Sonya, who was diagnosed with ACC at the base of her tongue four years ago after experiencing jaw pain for several years and initially being treated for TMJ. Her eventual diagnosis came in terrifying circumstances, following a medical emergency that nearly cost Sonya her life. She went on to undergo a 100% glossectomy and laryngectomy, followed by radiotherapy, and today continues to live with and receive treatment for metastatic disease in her lungs.

But this episode is about so much more than cancer treatment.

Sonya speaks with remarkable openness – and plenty of her trademark humour – about losing her tongue and natural voice, learning to communicate differently, adjusting to a completely changed relationship with food, stepping away from a career that had been central to her identity, and figuring out who she was when productivity could no longer define her worth.

A central part of Sonya's story is voice banking and virtual voicing. Before surgery, she had just a few weeks to discover that voice banking even existed and record as much of her voice as she could. Today, advances in AI allow Sonya to communicate using a cloned version of her own voice – technology she says has given her not only a voice, but confidence, independence and a sense of identity.

If you’ve been diagnosed with tongue cancer (or are supporting someone who has), you can find help here:

🌍 Website

🤝 Join support groups & mailing list: via the website

💌 Contact us: podcast@youngtonguesglobal.com

We’re building this with our community — and you can be part of it:

✨ Volunteer & share your experience

🎙️ Apply to appear on the podcast

🧠 Take part in research opportunities

We’re a small charity with a big mission — and we rely on community support to keep going.

👉 Find out more how to make a donation or fundraise for us here

Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Mailing List

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.