Published Mar 18, 2021

Sexually Transmitted Infection or Cancer? Stage 4 Tongue Cancer Survivor Could Have Lost Her Life Due to Shame Over Potential STI-Related Mouth Sore

Olivia Wallace, 24, is now cancer-free and urging people to get suspicious growths checked even if they're embarrassed.

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Cancer Caught Just In Time

Olivia Wallace, 24, from Sunderland, England delayed going to the doctor’s office to get a sore on her tongue checked out because she feared it was sexually-related. It wound up being stage 4 tongue cancer.
Wallace made it to the other side and is luckily cancer-free, and is now urging people to go get checked out, as she could have lost her life if she had waited any longer.
Tongue cancer can be caused by a sexually-transmitted virus called HPV, and top experts suggest getting young adults vaccinated.

Survivor Olivia Wallace, 24, from Sunderland, England, was diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer at age 20. The cancer was caught late due to the young woman’s shame of initially going to get the “ulcer-type growth” on her tongue checked because she thought it was an STI (sexually-transmitted infection).

“I noticed something on my tongue and thought it was a reoccurring ulcer,” Wallace told the Daily Mail. “It wasn’t particularly painful to start with. It started getting bigger and I was worried that it might be an STI. It put me off going to the doctors for about seven months.”

When she finally went to the doctor, she didn’t want her dad there for fear that it was, indeed, sexually related. But her father came in for support when the medical team learned the news of her advanced stage cancer. Now, at 24, she happily reports she is cancer free. She caught it just in time.

Wallace didn’t know it was possible to get throat cancer as a young adult, and asked if she was going to die. “If I had left it much longer to see the doctor I might not be here today as I was told that it would have soon spread across my body,” she said.

The cancer had already spread to her neck and lymph nodes. “I was shocked when they said that I had tongue cancer and that it had spread to my lymph nodes,” she said. “I worked in palliative care and looked after people dying of cancer, but I didn’t see me getting it.”

She completed 30 sessions of radiotherapy and six rounds of chemotherapy and had an operation to remove the tumor. “During some of my treatment I had to be fed through a nasal gastric tube and I suffered from sickness and fatigue,” she said, also admitting that she wished she had taken better care of herself in general. She said she was overweight and living a hard-partying lifestyle at times. When you’re not as focused on your health or taking care of your body, you’re more likely to let check ups at the doctor slide.

Now that Wallace is living a healthier lifestyle after her traumatic health experience, and is at a healthy weight, she is feeling much better about herself. She feels it is her calling to help encourage others to get checked no matter how embarrassed or scared they may be.

“Doctors are professionals who are there to help and they could save your life if it turns out to be something like cancer,” she said. “If not, it’s a weight off your mind.”

Preventing Tongue Cancer

Tongue cancer, which is often categorized as a "head and neck cancer," is associated with HPV, the human papillomavirus. Only in recent years have doctors been discovering more about the virus and its association with these diseases.

There is also now an HPV vaccine that prevents against HPV-related cancers and can be administered starting as young as 9 years old.

"We recommend strongly that children are vaccinated against HPV to prevent cervical cancer, but also to prevent head and neck cancer," Dr. Jessica Geiger, a medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, tells SurvivorNet. "Now the key with the vaccine is that you received the vaccine before you ever reach sexual debut or have sexual encounters. So that's why these vaccines are approved for young children ages 9, 10, 11 years old, up to 26."

How is HPV Spread?

"HPV is spread through sexual contact," Dr. Geiger says. "HPV is a virus that's actually very well spread throughout Western society. Fortunately, for the majority of us, over 90%, we clear the virus without ever knowing that we were exposed."

However, in 6% or 7% of the population, "the virus remains dormant in our body." she says. "And over time, meaning decades after we were first exposed, the virus gets into our DNA, and likes to settle in the tissues of the cervix or the back of the throat, and can ultimately cause changes that form cancer."

Why the HPV Vaccine is so Important in Preventing Cancer

The important thing to know about HPV is that there are many different strains, and only a couple of them tend to cause cancer. "The vast majority of humans in the US, both men and woman, will eventually get infected with human papillomavirus," Dr. Allen Ho from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center tells SurvivorNet. "Probably less than 1% of the population who get infected happen to have the cancer-causing virus that, somehow, their immune system fails to clear."

Why the HPV Vaccine is so Important in Preventing Cancer

HPV and Cancer Risk: The Basics

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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