Understanding Head & Neck Cancers
- American sportscaster Chris Berman has lived through tragedy and overcome adversity as he lost his wife Katherine in a tragic car accident and later supported his daughter Meredith amid her tongue cancer battle.
- It’s much more common to know someone who has a head or neck cancer, like tongue cancer, nowadays than it was several decades ago. And that’s due to its strong connection to HPV, which is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States.
- Grief is a difficult and personal process, something Chris Berman has shown. Some find solace in vulnerability and sharing how they feel with others.
- While working through grief and vulnerable tackling of the emotions that accompany it, some find tools like therapy to be helpful. Support groups can also be a benefit for those who are feeling isolated in their feelings of grief, as can turning to faith. Whichever methods of support you look for after cancer loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
The father of two, who has been an anchor on ESPN’s show “SportsCenter” since 1979, lost his beloved wife of more than three decades when she was killed in a two-vehicle accident in Connecticut.
Read MoreSports stars send condolences to ESPN's Chris Berman over wife's death: https://t.co/igoWBhEBSC pic.twitter.com/0cmZVhJUHd
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 10, 2017
He continued, “She had waited all this time, this is what I said at the eulogy, never complaining and she never saw it. Here it was, our son’s going to get married, there’s our daughter [Meredith], I’m semi-retired.
“That’s what makes me the saddest. This was right at the doorstep. Doug had a wonderful wedding. It was great, upbeat. But there’s the song my son never got to dance with his mother. That’s rough.”
Although losing his wife was incredible difficult, he told the news outlet that he continues in his attempt to live life to the fullest.
Berman added, “I guess if you’re 38 years on national TV, people feel like they know you. There’s not much mystery about me after all these years. Perfect strangers run into you in a store, Rite Aid, where I get the Sunday papers, saying, ‘We’re really sorry.’ I get this feeling from people, ‘Our guy needs our help right now, and here we are.'”
However, just two years later, Berman offered some more insight into his life and the hardships he’s dealt with during an interview with New England Sports Network (NESN).
He spoke to NESN with his daughter Meredith, who is in remission from tongue cancer, a type of head and neck cancer.
During the 2019 interview, Meredith explained, “I am not embarrassed to admit I have never been even curious enough to take a puff of a cigarette. So there is literally no chance it could have been related to that.”
As for the what led to her diagnosis, Meredith admits it’s unknown, saying, “That was one of the biggest questions that I had coming out of it. You think about how do I prevent this from ever happening again, you want to be able to address the environmental factors and they have no explanation.
“With oral cancer and head and neck cancer, in general, the HPV virus is a really big cause of it and so that’s why they are seeing it in younger and younger patients. But for me, they did the pathology … there was no relation to that at all. So they really have no explanation or why.”
She continued, “It was crazy, it was just about a year ago, I was away with friends for a weekend, and out of nowhere the right side of my tongue just was swollen. It was swollen, it was painful and it had really come out of nowhere. And I have gotten canker sores a ton, like spicy foods or acid foods, over my life, so I thought, oh maybe it’s a canker sore and maybe it infected or got irritated. And it just didn’t go away. So it waxed and waned and I let it linger and it just go to a point where it was just really painful. And it was obvious it was just not going to go away on its own.”
She recounted going to an urgent care when it was first swollen, looking back on how she was told she “should get this checked out, it could be cancer,” but they gave her pain medication.
Meredith also pointed out how she thought the cancer statement was “a little much” and “laughed” it off but when it didn’t go away, she started to worry maybe it could be “really serious.”
She ultimately went to an ear, nose and throat doctor who said he had to do surgery and a biopsy as soon as possible. Once her cancer was diagnosed, she chose to go to Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which she praises for giving her “quality care.”
As for her dad’s take on her diagnosis and his wife’s passing, he told NESN that he never thinks badly about the events that unfolded in his life, saying, “We lived … we didn’t have a lot of this for a long time. So we wondered, it can’t be this good all the time.”
Expert Resources On HPV-Linked Cancers
- Get the Facts: What Do We Know About HPV-Linked Throat Cancer?
- The HPV Vaccine Gardasil Now Approved For Prevention of Head & Neck Cancers– As Cases Rise in Men
- HPV-Related Cancers Are on the Rise And More Than 70 Cancer Centers Call for Urgent Action to Increase Vaccinations; What You Need to Know to Protect Your Child’s Health
- Millions More Americans Now Eligible to be Vaccinated Against HPV-Related Cancers
- HPV Vaccination Dramatically Reduces Cervical Cancer Rates; Everything You Should Know About The Vaccine
Meredith chimed in, “I never asked myself why me? I think it’s short-sided to say what I do, why me? Because there’s little kids walking around here [who are also battling cancer and undergoing treatment].”
She praised her doctors and researchers as the true “warriors,” admitting, “I was just there .. I just had to make it through.”
However, her dad praised her impressive and uplifting “attitude” for helping her get through the hard times.
He said, “Her attitude … ‘what do we have to do today? and the next week, what do we have to do about recover?’
Meredith said she completed radiation at the end of January 2019, adding, “I’m a good distance away from that [chemo] and I have never had any medical issues at all, maybe a broken finger. … I’m still struggling to eat a lot of things and my ability to swallow .. so it’s a process. I’m finally at a point where I’m not in pain every day and the prognosis is excellent.”
“The first thing they said when they were in there to see my scans was We think we can treat to cure this and that probably a part of why I was never down about it because I know a lot of people don’t hear this from their doctors … and so I have every reason to believe that they don’t expect it to return so this should be it,” she said,
We truly admire Berman’s strength and willing to continue living life after such emotional experiences, as him and his family’s optimistic outlook on life is something many cancer warriors can look up to.
Tips For Starting Over After a Life-Changing Event
Starting over after a life-changing event, like losing a loved one to suicide, is certainly arduous, but it can be done. Here’s how:
- Examine your thoughts. Take time to reflect on the tragedy or difficulty you are facing. Dr. Scott Irwin tells SurvivorNet that, often, people with cancer and chronic disease are “grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different.”
- Seek help. Irwin, who directs Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, adds that talk therapy can help people significantly: “It’s about meeting the individual patient where they are and their feelings, how they’ve always dealt with their body image, what the body image changes mean now in their lives and their relationships, and how they can move forward given the new reality.
- Realize that you are not the first. Study the lives of other people who have faced similar difficulties. Dr. Samantha Boardman tells SurvivorNet, “Having support we know is really critical in the healing process.” She adds there is also a benefit in “talking to those who’ve, you know, been through this process, who are maybe a couple of steps ahead of you, who can tell you what it’s like to walk in their shoes and the unbelievable wisdom that one can gain from speaking to them.”
- Visualize the future. Imagine what it will look like for you to start over. Many people find it very helpful to create a vision board. Cut out pictures or quotes or mementos that give you a concrete picture of your future. Look to it when you are feeling down or in need of a lift. The good news? It works.
‘Sink or Swim’: An Inspiring Tale of Getting Back on Board
Moving Through Grief
Grief is a difficult and personal process, something Chris Berman has shown. Some find solace in vulnerability and sharing how they feel with others.
Therapy Saved My Life’: After Losing A Loved One, Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help
While working through grief and vulnerable tackling of the emotions that accompany it, some find tools like therapy to be helpful. Support groups can also be a benefit for those who are feeling isolated in their feelings of grief, as can turning to faith.
Whichever methods of support you look for after cancer loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
Tongue Cancer: Understanding the Cause of Head & Neck Cancers
It’s much more common to know someone who has a head or neck cancer, like tongue cancer, now-a-days than it was several decades ago. And that’s because of its strong connection to the human papillomavirus, also known as HPV, which is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States.
HPV and Cancer Risk: The Basics
“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 vast majority of humans in the United States both men and women will eventually get infected with HPV, according to Dr. Allen Ho, a head and neck surgeon at Cedars-Sinai.
“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,” he told SurvivorNet.
“Probably less than 1 percent 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.”
It’s unclear whether HPV alone is enough to trigger the changes in your cells that lead to head and neck cancers, or whether this happens in combination with other risk factors like smoking.
Of course, some people who develop head and/or neck cancers have no known risk factors for the condition. Genetics can play a role in this cancer, too.
Why the HPV Vaccine is so Important in Preventing Cancer
Head and neck cancers are unique in that they’re usually preventable with the HPV vaccine. And that’s why those eligible should get vaccinated against HPV, SurvivorNet experts have told us.
The vaccine is typically given to children before they are sexually active, as HPV is transmitted through sexual contact.
And contrary to some detrimental misinformation circulated online, the HPV vaccine is entirely safe.
There are virtually no side effects with this vaccine, Dr. Jonathan Berek, director of the Women’s Cancer Center at Stanford Medical Center, previously told SurvivorNet.
It is “incredibly safe,” he added.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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