Love for Lindsey

Hello Everyone,

My cousin, Lindsey, a single mom to two daughters was recently diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Due to her cancer diagnosis, surgeries, and treatments over the past few months she has been unable to work and could really use some extra help. Let us bless Lindsey with love during this very challenging and difficult time of her life. Money raised will be used for accumulating medical bills, daily expenses, groceries, gas, and monthly household bills. If you would like to support Lindsey via gift cards here are some options that would be helpful to her. Gas gift cards, Instacart, Panera, Chick-fil-A, Culvers, Potbelly, Subway, Jimmy Johns, Meijer, Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Walgreens/ CVS.

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness and generosity. It means the world to Lindsey and her family. Please share her page with family/ friends and keep her

in your thoughts and prayers. Below is her personal testimony. Thank you and God bless.

Here is her story:

February 24th 2025, I received a phone call from an oral surgeon confirming my worst fears. “Lindsey, I have your biopsy results... It's keratinized squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue.”

(due to severe long term trauma from friction and biting)

The next few weeks were a blur of dr visits, consultations with a specialist in Chicago, medical tests, and the fear of the unknown. On April 8th I had a 10 hour surgery with 2 different surgeons, a hemiglossectomy, which is the removal of the cancerous part of my tongue. (That ran deeper than I expected) During the surgery I had a radial forearm free flap to reconstruct my tongue (with an artery and tissue from my left arm) I also had 18 lymph nodes removed from my neck to check for possible lymph involvement. This surgery typically has a 95% success rate. After a few days in the ICU the unthinkable happened, I was told that my body created a blood clot within the new artery (that was supporting my new tongue flap) Even after taking anti-clot injections daily since the surgery, I was told that my case had failed. I was unfortunately in the 5%. I was back in the operating room 4 days later for another 6 hour surgery to undo the first reconstruction and to create a new one, a promising different approach. This time my pectoralis muscle was used from my chest (pectoralis major myocutaneous flap surgery) This muscle was pulled up through my neck and rotated under my jaw to construct the new part of my tongue.

I spent 2 weeks total in the hospital, and a week and a half in ICU. A feeding tube was placed for over a month and a half for optimal healing inside my mouth.

2 weeks after surgery I received the pathology report. Margins on my tongue were clear from the tumor. 17 lymph nodes were negative for cancer. ONE lymph node removed was malignant. Once tongue cancer spreads to even just ONE lymph node nearby it’s considered stage IV cancer.

A referral and a consultation with a radiation oncologist was up next as well as a medical oncologist to discuss recommendations moving forward regarding head and neck radiation and chemotherapy.

Update: I’m currently in daily head/neck radiation and weekly chemo treatments and will continue to fight this horrible disease. My speech has been moderately affected by this, and speech therapy has started and will continue. I appreciate all the love and support I've already received from family and friends as I navigate through this difficult and dark time in my life.

“You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.”- Bob Marley

Also, a heartfelt thank you to my cousin Megan who offered to organize this page for me.