Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas

Subject: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 12:31 AM

I won't call this BS, but it can go below the line. Too many cases of throat cancer have turned up in this universe lately, and tonight the actor Michael Douglas told David Letterman that he has stage 4 throat cancer. They're talking treatment and percentages even as I type.

Not that this is any more important than the cases our Mudcatters Kendall and Curmudgeon have been going through, but it will certainly bring more attention to this disease.

ABC News story.

So how are our guys doing?

SRS

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 01:13 AM

It certainly made me think of 'our guys'.

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 01:41 AM

AP Story


Spaw

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: olddude
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 01:49 AM

I hope he recovers soon

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 07:16 AM

The stories don't say anything more specific about location than "throat" -- and there can be some MAJOR variations: glottic, sub-glottic and supra-glottic and the treatments vary dramatically. Glottic (cancer of the true cords)is highly unlikely to spread because it has no connection with the lymph system and only spreads by growing larger and engulfing a larger area of tissue.

Both Kendall and Tom have had squamous cell carcinoma of the true cords -- glottic -- and have had partial laryngectomies. In Tom's case, this means he has no right vocal cord -- just a gap where it once was -- but his left vocal cord is intact and healthy. The reason he has such a quiet voice right now (and has trouble coughing and can't sneeze) is that gap.

Right now (he's boarding the train this moment) he's on his way to Boston to meet with the anesthesiologist at Mass Eye & Ear to see whether he'll have a better chance with general anesthesia right now then he had in February (which was before his defibrillator battery was changed) or whether Dr. Z will do a procedure that only involves local anesthesia. Then he'll go over to Dr. Zeitels' office at The Voice Center (One Bowdoin Square) to meet with Dr. Z and decide exactly which procedure -- under general or local anesthetic -- will kick off the voice restoration process. Soooo...I'll know more when he's home this afternoon. But whichever procedure Dr. Zeitels decides to start with, it will be in the next couple weeks and it will involve building up the area of the right vocal cord (with body fat or other material) so there will be no gap and the intact left vocal can work against it to produce a voice.

How's that for up-to-the-moment reportage?

I hope Michael Douglas has a doctor skilled not only in the eradication of the cancer but in voice preservation and restoration. Too many doctors are not sensitive enough to the importance of preservation of voice. (And I remember the head of oncological radiation at the Seacoast Cancer Center telling us that what he would consider a "good" voice, we probably would consider "crap" -- his word.)

Linn

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 09:12 AM

And Michael W. Harrison, among us.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:10 AM

The 65-year-old "Wall Street" star said in an interview with People magazine that he expects to make a full recovery after a walnut-sized tumor was found on the base of his tongue in early August. Douglas is currently undergoing an eight-week course of radiation and chemotherapy in New York. His doctors said there is no evidence that the cancer has spread.

"I'm treating this as a curable disease," he said. "It's a fight. I'll beat this."

Update

Linn

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 10:12 AM

A friend of ours was similarly diagnosed with a tumor at the base of his tongue about the same time Tom had his vocal cord biopsy last September 4th.

Linn

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:59 PM

It's a fight that I'm sure takes a lot of sustained energy stick-to-itiveness and Kendall and Tom both seem to have that in abundance. What I like to see is when you can tell the person/host/patient has caught up to the invasion and passed it and left it behind. Which, I believe, both Curmudgeon and Kendall have done.

Subject: RE: Throat Cancer - actor Michael Douglas
From: Slag
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 06:03 PM

God bless. My prayers are with you and yours and Mr. Douglas, also no small talent, who has given millions many hours of enjoyment.