My name is Jean, and I am Michael’s mother. For those that know him, he prefers Mike, but will go by Mikey or Northy for his hockey friends. For those who know me, know that I am not a wordsmith by any means, and am getting assistance with this process from some of his close friends.

DIAGNOSIS JOURNEY

I wanted to share the background of Michael’s journey over the last year in his quest of diagnosis and his new chapter of treatment with UNC Hospitals in Raleigh.

Michael has been dealing with head and neck pain for over a year. He attempted getting help with a primary care, an Ear, Nose & Throat specialist, Urgent Cares, dentists and so on. In August of 2025 they decided to label his issue as Trigeminal Neuralgia where he got multiple nerve block shots to try and ease the pain. Sadly, since that wasn’t the true cause of pain the results were minimal. So he continued to find a path of assistance. At this point, the pain he was dealing with is primarily on the right side of his face, including jaw and ear pain as well as very intense headaches that are pretty much nonstop.

In the final months of 2025 his speech started to slur, his eating became more difficult, and he had issues with his tongue. In December after more visits to his primary care with no luck on pushing him in the right direction, he went to WakeMed Urgent Care in Cary, NC. There the doctor actually listened to what he was saying and inspected his mouth properly. When he felt the mass on the back of Michael’s tongue he instantly referred him to the Mann ENT Urgent Care.

The following day Michael went to the Mann ENT Urgent Care and got reviewed by Dr. Spector. The doctor was giving the attention needed as well as the urgency to get to the bottom of it. They got new imaging requested and it came back with the phone call confirming a diagnosis of a carcinoma of the tongue. That’s when we shifted gears to the next referral to the UNC network.

Michael had a biopsy done on January 6th by Dr. Yarborough, where the cancer was confirmed and a plan was put in place for treatment, finally. Michael has been given the diagnosis of Stage IV tongue cancer. This diagnosis was extremely surprising since Michael has never smoked a day in his life.

Dr. Yarborough was amazing at giving this an urgent push to get started quickly. Michael met with Dr. Huff, his radiation oncologist, and Dr. Vicente, his chemo oncologist a few days later and they constructed his plan for treatment, which started on January 27th.

TREATMENT

The main focus is radiation. Since the tumor is a level 4 in size and has some movement to lymph nodes in neck, they wanted to try and remove it this way without surgery to maintain as much functionality as possible. Radiation is 35 sessions, 5 days a week for 7 weeks. The chemo is being given once a week for 7 weeks, to boost the effectiveness of the radiation.

Due to the side effects of his tumor location, Michael has lost nearly 40 pounds prior to beginning his treatment plan. The doctors advocated for a feeding tube to be installed to help maintain his weight and proper nutritional needs during the treatment. Michael had surgery on January 22nd to install his feeding tube, a week after the procedure to install his chemo port.

SUPPORT

Why are we asking for help? The truth is that over the last year Michael has really put himself in debt with the medical bills without proper diagnosis alone. He maxed out credit cards trying to find a solution. Now with the plan in place and a finish line in site, the bills don’t stop. His insurance plan through Aetna has a $13,500 out-of-pocket maximum.

With the aggressive treatment plan, Michael will more than likely miss several weeks of work. Just in the first week, he struggled with keeping up with work tasks and already used some of his PTO. His company gave him all of the paperwork for FMLA, which is unpaid leave. The benefit of this is that he won’t lose his job for being out for treatment, but at the same time is limited to incoming money for regular life costs for him and his daughter, Ava.

Medical bills and everyday living costs add up fast, creating even more stress during an already overwhelming time. We appreciate any little help that you can offer.