Deep Throat Thoughts

My voice it chokes

The lodger in my throat

My throat it hides

The enemy inside

"I always thought Deep Throat was a movie about a giraffe." - Bob Hope

The throat is the inside of the neck. In these neck of the woods, we think quite a bit about throat. Essentially a passageway from head to torso, the neck holds the head up, the throat carries the fuel from the food we consume to our digestive system - the esophagus, stomach, and through to the intestines, leading to the only exit door available in case of fire.

Inside the throat we see the tongue near the top, the going further up there is a a bridge we call the trachea that leads to the nose, with all its breathing and smelling apparatus, then down to the lungs. Going deep down the throat, we find the larynx, or vocal cords, or voice “box”. Although it doesn’t look much like a box. Next up, we have the thyroid gland, a butterfly shape located just below the Adam’s Apple. The thyroid, might be my favourite roid, as it wraps itself like a snake around the trachea. The misunderstood thyroid is very important, regulating hormones and how we process fats and carbs, which for North Americans is the foundation of their bad diet.

My cancer was located at the base of my tongue, inside my throat, inside my neck. Which is why some call it a neck cancer, some call it a throat cancer, and those who like to drill down, call it a tongue cancer. My treatments are over, and in October I will undergo scan to confirm the existence or non-existence of the tongue cancer.

In the meantime, I am recovering from the effects of the treatment. Some of the major effects have been dry mouth, ( Xerstomia) which is common in 1 out of 4 adults. In my case, it was caused by the radiation. My mouth does not create enough saliva, since the radiation affected the salivary glands. Another side effect that I am experiencing is loss of taste.

Dry mouth is quite a nuisance, as I wake in the night, my mouth as barren as a desert, my tongue stuck to the rough of my mouth. If I talk too much in the day, it gets dry, impeding my speech, making it difficult for me to speak, to eat, to swallow.

Without spit, there is no swallow. So I drink lots of water while I am eating the food that I can only barely taste, just to get it down. Will this go away in time? I can only hope. My radiologist suggests a year. But it may be something I will have to live with.

As a result of the dry mouth, my voice has changed, sounding muffled and scratchy. My singing does not sound so good at this point. So two of the things that give me the most pleasure in life are affected - singing and eating.

I did radio interview a month or so ago, the interviewer came to my home. She took a picture of my wife Michelle and I sitting in the couch. As I looked at this photo, I was stuck by just how gaunt I looked

.

That was the point in my treatment when I was at the very bottom. I was speaking to a psychologist the other day, and she remarked on the perspective that I had developed. It is hard to move on, but it is even harder for me to remember as I live in the moment. But perspective allows me to see how far I have come.

Michelle took a picture of me the other day, and you can see how far I have come.

So when I am struck by the pain that I feel, that has resulted from the whiplash I developed from the car accident, I can only hope for the future perspective to look back on what I am experiencing in the present. I will look back and say, boy, I was feeling lousy then, but now it seems like dream. I am looking forward to that awakening.