We all speak, eat, taste and sing.  We all use our spit and swallow to survive.  We learn to do this as babies, before our conscious is fully awakened. So how many of us think about the organ that allows us to do this?

Our tongue is an example of the miracle of the human body.

Learning to do without some of it provides me with a daily lesson of not to take anything for granted.  Currently I have no idea how I’m going to sound tomorrow.  Thankfully I think I’m through the breathless ‘Pinky and Perky” squeaking that seemed to come out of my mouth the first few weeks!  But the lisp, and the struggle to make ‘sss’ and ‘ttt’ sounds more clear, can be really frustrating.  Each day I wake up to find out how much I will be able to eat or swallow.  And my family will tell you that I have thankfully given up singing, the notes I was able to hit unswervingly just a few months ago are now a distant memory.

One of the many things I am learning since having mouth cancer is to be mindful of what goes in my mouth and how I eat it.

Just take a moment.  Think about your last meal.  How do you use your tongue to move  food around your mouth?  Which teeth do you use to chew, and why? What makes your food moist enough to swallow? How do you swallow? How do you know when to swallow? How does your body know to send food to your oesophagus, where else could it go?

Frankly,  a few weeks ago I could not answer these questions myself. But one of the many things I am learning throughout this process is the importance of the mouth in the enjoyment of food.

So the week before my operation, I have my first experiment on this journey. I buy lots of different foods. I sit at our dining room table.  Everything is quiet apart from the ticking of the grandfather clock. I look at all the foodstuffs laid out in front of me.  I feel each one, taking note of the rich red of the tomatoes, the different greens of the apple, celery, cucumber, then there is the orange of the carrot, the yellow of the pepper. I look at the pots of yogurt and humus, I smell everything before putting it back down. I shut my eyes.  This is  a visualisation game.  On my own. No Kim Basinger or Christian Grey involved.  The purpose is to kick-start my recall.  How to eat different foods with different textures, smells and tastes when half my tongue is gone. And I practice.  Through touch and smell I can accurately guess what I have to eat before it goes in my mouth. But, when it gets in there, habit takes over and I chew and swallow quickly, anticipating the next mouthful.  I have to stop. To remind myself of the purpose of this exercise.

Turns out that I’m rubbish at it. It’s not greed exactly,   it’s just that it’s difficult to work out what my tongue is doing, how my teeth are involved, how I swallow.  I think it’s fair to say that being mindful about how I eat is not a natural state for me.

You try it.  It’s not easy.

    

From my hospital bed, I ask my tribe to do just this.  To describe how they masticate.  The answers vary and some are hilarious. Many are similar to me.  In a resting state their tongue sits at the roof of the mouth.  Others find their tongue rests on the floor of the mouth. Some talk of pooling their food, rolling it around, others discuss the importance of saliva, one talks about the tongue working like a wave rolling the food onto the teeth to chew before pooling it back together and sending it back to the back of the throat for the swallow reflex to take over.

I now know that the tongue is a 3D organ, made up of 8 major muscles.  I have listened to the experts and read a lot on the web on how it works and all it does.  And I know today that some of these muscles have gone in my mouth and are replaced by skin that’s still learning to behave.   And skin is not, and never will be, muscle.  I am changed forever.

Imagine your life without being able to speak, taste, eat, swallow or sing. How differently would you feel? How confident would you be?How much enjoyment would you have from life itself?

I urge you to check your tongue regularly and to make sure you go to the dentist regularly and have them check it for you, looking underneath and at the back  – the places you cannot see.

And keep talking…