Facing Fear After Cancer Diagnosis
- Actor and food host Stanley Tucci is sharing about his 2017 oral cancer diagnosis, expressing how thankful he is for his wife Felicity Blunt and her sister, actress Emily Blunt, who got him to face his fears and get into treatment – he’s now in remission today and credits his support team.
- When going through cancer, it is so important to have a strong support system. It helps to alleviate anxiety and depression as cancer treatments can become more intense over time.
- For those who feel they have no one to rely on, talk to your care team. They can recommend a social worker and community support groups with people going through a similar struggle. No one should be alone while going through cancer.
- Though not all oral cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, there is a link — and these types of cancers can be prevented with the HPV vaccine.
“I was so afraid,” Tucci, 63, said in an interview with Willie Geist on Today‘s Sunday Sitdown. “I mean, they had to drag me kicking and screaming but I wouldn’t be around if I hadn’t done that.”
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Though the treatment was tough on the Spotlight star, the foodie is thriving today, allowing his passion in the kitchen steer him down another career path as a food host, more appreciative than ever after having difficulty eating for two years. He said he lived with a lot of pain in his jaw before finding out what was wrong.
Tucci’s Diagnosis
“I had a scan, but the scan missed it,” the father of five recalled of the delayed diagnosis. Doctors then found a 3-cm tumor at the base of his tongue.
“They couldn’t do surgery because the tumor was so big. It’s a miracle that it didn’t metastasize. It had been in me so long.”
Tucci went through 35 days of radiation and seven chemotherapy treatments. His sense of taste and smell was affected and he had to eat through a feeding tube.
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Once he went into remission the following year, he began to regain his senses and was able to eat again. Tucci, who just announced a new food show for National Geographic earlier this month called Tucci: The Heart of Italy, said it was “just the most exciting thing in the world.”
Learning More About Tongue Cancer
Tongue cancer, a type of oral cancer that is also referred to as a head and neck cancer, can surface on the part of the tongue that is in the mouth, as well as the portion that is located in the back of the throat, where it can be harder to detect.
According to the Mayo Clinic, tongue cancer can spread into the neck’s lymph nodes, but even with a delayed diagnosis, Tucci thankfully caught the cancer in time.
While surgery is often required to remove the cancerous cells, other times it is not possible and/or too risky, as in Tucci’s case. Other treatments include chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted drug therapies.
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If the cancer is advanced, some of these treatments can affect a patient’s ability to eat or speak though it’s possible to regain those functions through rehabilitation therapy, like Tucci.
Oral Cancer Can Be HPV-Related
Though not all oral cancer is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, there is a link.
“The vast majority of humans in the U.S., both men and women, will eventually get infected with human papillomavirus,” Dr. Allen Ho, a head and neck surgeon at Cedars-Sinai, explained to SurvivorNet in a previous interview.
“The important thing to know about HPV is that there are many different strains, and only a couple of them tend to be more cancer-inducing. 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, and over 15 to 20 years [it] develops from a viral infection into a tumor, and a cancer.”
HPV and Cancer Risk: The Basics
The HPV vaccine can prevent a lot of these cancers. Gardasil 9 protects against nine strains of HPV – including the strains most likely to cause cancer and genital warts. But it can’t provide protection if a person has already been exposed to HPV. That’s why doctors recommend it for children as young as 9.
“From the 1980s to the 2010s, the rate of HPV-related head and neck cancers has gone up by 300 percent,” Dr. Ted Teknos, a head and neck cancer specialist, and president and scientific director of University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio, told SurvivorNet during a previous interview.
The Power of Support
When going through cancer, it is so important to have a strong support system.
Having a partner, friend, or family member by your side to help care for and support you through a health struggle can be monumental for coping with the disease. It helps to alleviate anxiety and depression as cancer treatments can become more intense over time.
Dr. Shelly Tworoger, a researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center told SurvivorNet that “there’s a number of common things cancer patients can experience, such as anxiety, depression, financial toxicity, social isolation.”
Knowing you have loved ones by your side at every step helps you process those emotions and cope with your new reality during your journey.
For those who feel they have no one to rely on, talk to your care team. They can recommend a social worker and community support groups with people going through a similar struggle. No one should be alone while going through cancer. There is comfort out there.
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