SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Head and neck cancers can be found inside the lining of the nose, mouth, throat or skin of the head and neck. These areas can be difficult for people to see themselves, making them difficult to detect.
This Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month, we hear from one patient who went into the doctor after noticing a new lump on his neck, leading to a cancer diagnosis. That’s in this Avera Medical Minute.
“I woke up from a nap and she was looking at me across from the dinner table and saw I had a lump on my neck, and she said ‘What is that?’ and I said ‘I don’t know.’ She said if that was there on Monday, this was Saturday, you’re going in to get looked at, so I went in on Monday,” said Avera patient, Chad McIntyre.
“When Mr. McIntyre came to us, back last May, he presented how a lot of patients present, which is he had a painless swelling in his neck, just noticed it out of the blue, didn’t really have any other symptoms,” said Kristen Coffroth, MD, Head and Neck surgery, ENT, & Otolaryngology.
After completing a biopsy and getting the results, it was determined that Chad had a squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil, or a tonsil cancer.
“I was 56 at the time, and I thought cancer, that doesn’t make sense, but it was real,” said McIntyre.
Dr. Coffroth determined that chemotherapy and radiation would be his best treatment option.
“For him, he had a very large lymph node that was fixed in place and so for him that suggests to me that probably had some component of extranodal extension or that cancer eating a little bit outside of that lymph node and surrounding tissues, that tells me he would need chemotherapy radiation,” said Dr. Coffroth.
“They really just said that we caught it early enough that the best thing we can do is chemotherapy and radiation so we had 6 weeks of chemotherapy every Monday and then Monday through Friday I had radiation treatments, so for seven weeks,” said McIntyre. “I set a couple goals, one of the goals was I was going to drive myself and I had a lot of people lined up to help me drive, an hour and a half drive. But I did drive every day. People were surprised, but it gave me a little more confidence in the whole process.”
Throughout his treatment, McIntyre kept a positive attitude. And once completing his treatment, he was able to ring the bell.
“When I went to ring the bell, I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to show off, I don’t want to draw attention to myself, and my wife and daughter, nurses, everyone is talking me into it after chemo, I said I’d do it, and I did, and I looked around and realized everybody was not only paying attention but all the nurses were watching and after I rang the bell I got a round of applause, and I was like I get it, this isn’t for me, this is for them, so that was a cool moment,” said McIntyre.
“He did really well with chemotherapy radiation and things are looking very promising right now,” said Coffroth. “It appears he is cancer-free in all of our testing, although again we will be following him for five years to ensure that nothing else pops up.”
A positive outcome that Chad credits to a positive mindset.
“I just stayed positive, let’s get through this, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I think that’s what probably drove me through was being positive and having a good support system,” said McIntyre.
Dr. Coffroth says if you notice any new swelling in your head and neck that does not go away after a few weeks, you should see your doctor. To learn more about head and neck cancers, go to avera.org/medicalminute.
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