I'm began to notice periodic dryness in my throat.
I had a sore on the side of my tongue.
Head, neck and mouth cancers - of all locations - make up about 3% of all
cancers diagnosed in the United States. We find occasionally cancers in
patients who come in with symptoms of dentures not fitting well, of other
situations where they have difficulty swallowing. We can detect and make
referrals to the appropriate surgeons for biopsy as necessary. We're finding
that HPV has an increasing role in the development of oral cancers. We see HPV
related pharyngeal tumors in the area behind the tongue, in the throat.
Most oral cancers, when detected early, are very easily treatable so the key is
early detection, early diagnosis, and early management.
The cancer diagnosis was a shock.
Jim was diagnosed with a cancer of the roof of his mouth. It was
called an adenocarcinoma, which is a advanced and aggressive form of salivary gland tumor.
I had had surgery for the removal of a cancerous soft palate.
What comes out along with the tumor often is the teeth and the palate,
the roof of the mouth in that area.
I was outfitted with a temporary prosthesis.
We actually closed the defect and provide an artificial palate so that they can
function and speak and eat and swallow.
Given the nature of my cancer I would be wise to have radiation
in addition to the surgery.
We are intimately involved
in the pre-radiation and pre-chemotherapy treatment planning to make
sure that the teeth that they have are teeth that we feel are strong enough to
make it through the rest of their life. During the course of radiation therapy
Jim developed a lot of complications that made it very difficult for him to
eat and speak and swallow.
I lost about a third of my body mass in a five month period.
And so our management is really palliative with magic mouthwashes,
what I call mucositis cocktails - things that numb up
their mouth and make eating or just drinking liquids a little bit more
comfortable for their patients as they're going through treatment.
What's interesting about the diagnosis of a head neck cancer for a patient is
it affects the whole family. As a patient undergoes their care, patients and their
caregivers often forget to take care of themselves.
I had broken teeth.
I had gritted them so much that I had warned them down to the nerve endings.
She walked into my office saying that she's now ready to finally take care of her teeth.
And Dr. Gardner said 'It doesn't matter what you had to go
through to get to here, the only important thing is that you're here now.'
The first thing she did was to put temporary caps on my teeth so that I
could once again eat something that wasn't just lukewarm.
So now she has crowns on all of her upper teeth.
I have the same smile now that I had before cancer.
As a maxillofacial prosthodontist we specialize in building
anything inside the mouth as well as outside the mouth.
I had surgery on my right ear, it was a malignancy and it was pretty bad.
By the time the surgery was finished so
much of the cartilage of the ear, the kind of plastic part of the ear, was
removed that a plastic surgeon couldn't restore that.
I would go to Walmart, or go shopping and I'd see people looking at that notch out of my ear.
We made a mold of his ear with a rubber impression mold, poured
that up in stone. We used wax like we're using here and we sculpted his ear
and then I turned that into silicone.
It's durable, it'll probably last two,
three, maybe four years if I take care of it.
And he can do everything he wants with it.
The guys at the golf course I played golf with for last
twelve years couldn't tell which one it was and they seen me with the notch in there.
My prosthodontist screens me thoroughly for oral cancer at my annual exams.
Whether they're seeing a general dentist or a prosthodontist, that person
that oral care provider needs to provide a full head and neck screening at every recall visit.
I'll be 72-years-old. I'm often awed by the accidents in life.
Jim is about nine years out from his diagnosis and has been doing incredibly well.
Had my throat not been bothering me that day, would I have said
'you know I've had this dryness all summer'?
The key is early detection early, diagnosis, and early management.
It just makes me appreciate every day.