After finding out she was pregnant in November 2022, Mariana Bom should have been filled with excitement and anticipation. But instead, she couldn’t shake the feeling there was something seriously wrong.

In the first trimester, Bom, 25, noticed multiple white patches and an ulcer on the back of her tongue. Shortly after, Bom, of Germany, also developed a sore throat and earache too. She told Newsweek that she wondered if they were side effects of the COVID vaccine at the time, but doctors “always dismissed this theory.”

But when she noticed a small blister at the back of her tongue that hadn’t gone away for two weeks, Bom grew concerned. She visited an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist to get a second opinion

Bom said: “The ENT told me it was nothing serious, that it would go away, and there was no sign of danger. A month later, I went back, and they said it could be due to pregnancy as dental issues or oral thrush are common.”

The mouth ulcer continued to grow and that area of her mouth became really swollen. The more it pressed against her teeth, simple acts like eating and talking became excruciating.

As the weeks went by and her symptoms persisted, Bom took matters into her own hands. She did some research and was horrified to learn that her symptoms aligned with tongue cancer.

“One evening, I went to the emergency room. My belly was already visible by then and I told them that I suspected tongue cancer. At the ER reception, I was laughed at because I was too ‘young to have cancer’ in their view,” Bom said.

“In the treatment room, the doctor dismissed me and told me to put baking soda on my tongue and that it would go away.”

That wasn’t good enough for Bom, who decided to see another ENT two weeks later. She was determined to get answers and needed to be heard. The next ENT decided to do a biopsy and check for any signs of malignancy.

Just a week later, everything changed.

“That’s when I got the call—it was an aggressive tongue carcinoma,” Bom said.

Cancer is devastating for anyone, but being pregnant made it even more complicated. Bom hadn’t even told her family she was pregnant because it was still so early. But now she had to tell them that not only was she expecting, but she had cancer too.

Her mom, who had battled cervical cancer in 2019, instantly took her daughter’s hand and supported her.

“Since I was pregnant, our biggest concern was the baby. Would it have to come early? What were the options?” Bom told Newsweek.

“After many discussions between the specialist doctors, we decided, for the sake of my baby and my health, that I would undergo surgery while pregnant to remove as much of the tumor as possible.”

Surgery to remove the tumor lasted between five and seven hours. The cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes in her neck, so they too were removed.

Bom’s recovery involved spending two weeks in hospital, unable to eat or speak, and with drains coming out of her neck. It was a living nightmare, and she didn’t know if she’d ever feel the same.

“After two weeks, the ENT specialists and the OB-GYNs discussed whether my daughter should be delivered early so I could start radiation therapy—to be sure we destroyed any remaining cancer cells. Eventually, they decided to deliver her one month after my surgery via C-section,” Bom continued.

Bom’s daughter was delivered at 30 weeks and immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). She was placed on a ventilator as she was struggling to breathe and given a feeding tube.

Just a few weeks after welcoming her daughter, Bom began radiation. For the next eight weeks, she’d go to the hospital for treatment and then visit her daughter in the NICU after.

Her battle was certainly not over because the radiation side effects were so intense. It was “nearly impossible” to eat anything, she lost her sense of taste and felt exhausted.

“For the first few weeks, I could only consume liquid. I lost a lot of weight, and I felt extreme fatigue. I think it was a combination of postpartum exhaustion and the toll that the cancer treatment took on my body,” she said.

Thankfully, Bom and her daughter are doing much better now. While there are some lasting effects, Bom is glad to have her life and to still be here for her family. She still gets inflammation in her mouth frequently, and on some occasions, it feels as though her body has “been beaten up.”

While healing, Bom has documented her experience on TikTok (@mariana___1999) to raise awareness and encourage others to seek answers. She didn’t even know tongue cancer existed before her diagnosis, and what little information she found online left her without hope.

Now, she wants to be a beacon of light for others. For anyone experiencing symptoms, Bom urges them to listen to their body and push for answers.

“You always hear about common cancers, but I had never heard of tongue cancer,” Bom said. “The only thing that kept me going was thinking about my children and my husband. Without them, I don’t think I would’ve gotten through it. I wanted to show that there are different outcomes and it’s possible to survive.”

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