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Steve Jacobsen survived head & neck cancer | necrotic tissue | oropharyngeal | swallowing exercises



DESCRIPTION


Steve Jacobsen survived oropharyngeal cancer, a rare form of head and neck cancer.  He achieved survivorship through a regimen of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.  However, the journey took a tremendous emotional toll, both on Steve and his wife, who was his primary caregiver.

 

An avid athlete from Ventura, California, Steve’s journey began when he discovered a lump on the right side of his neck.  He thought it might be a swollen lymph node, and in fact, it was.  His general practitioner sent Steve to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who ran some tests and determined the lymph node indeed had some necrotic tissue, a sign that there could be some dead tissue there as a result of cancer. 

 

Not long after that, Steve Jacobsen was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer.  Specifically, that mean cancer was found on the back of his tongue, where the tongue extends to the Adam’s Apple.  Steve felt no pain, not even a sore throat.  The only indication of cancer was that swollen lymph node. 

 

As part of his treatment, Steve was put on a feeding tube.  What doctors never told him is the tube was there because he would have a difficult time swallowing.  Steve couldn’t even swallow his own saliva.  He had the feeding tube for a grueling six months.  During that time, Steve wondered if he would ever be able to ever again eat food in a normal fashion.  His daughter is a speech therapist, and she started Steve on a series of swallowing exercises, which he followed religiously.  Even so, as he took a little plastic spoon of warmed apple juice and beet broth, again he wondered if he would ever eat normally.

 

Because his inability to eat normally was so stressful, Steve Jacobsen diverted his focus on the challenges of radiation treatment and chemotherapy.  To deal with the stress from the feeding tube, Steve took advice from a friend who had had her own cancer journey, and he sought to keep moving.  He would go on walks of a mile or a mile and a half, and he would seek to use the stairs as often as possible. 

 

Eventually, Steve Jacobsen got the feeding tube removed.  Not long after that, he underwent a PET scan, then another PET scan, and both PET scans revealed there was no more cancer. 

 

He still goes in periodically to his ear, nose and throat specialist.  He puts a tube down Steve’s nose, a tube that goes into his throat, the tube include a camera, which takes a picture and shows no evidence of cancer.

 

After the feeding tube was removed, Steve could not immediately return to eating normally.  He started drinking a liquid drink in a normal way.  Then he would have to have foods that were first pureed.  His wife helped out by making smoothies, in an attempt to fatten him up, as during the treatment he had lost 35 pounds. 

 

Then one day Steve Jacobsen went to his ear, nose and throat doctor, who said he didn’t know why Steve couldn’t start eating solid foods.  Steve was elated and started with pea soup, meat loaf, vegetables and fruit.  He said every meal was “an adventure.” 

 

As Steve looks back on his journey, he reiterates the most stressful part was dealing with the feeding tube, for both he and his wife, Dorothy.  In dealing with the feeding tube, Dorothy used her thumb to push the syringe to get fluid into Steve, and from the repetitive pushing, she developed an inflamed tendon.  She went on develop caregiver burnout and sought therapy and medication.

 

Looking back, Steve Jacobsen says even through the darkest of times, he remained optimistic, as did wife Dorothy.  While Steve likes to shy away from including the word “advice,” he says for anyone on a cancer journey, help is out there and to be sure to seek the help.


TRANSCRIPTION

Bruce Morton: Greetings.  This is the Cancer Interviews podcast.  I’m your host, Bruce Morton, and on this segment, we are going to do something a little bit different.  Our guest is Steve Jacobsen of Ventura, California.  He is a survivor of a form of head and neck cancer.  We are going to talk about his diagnosis and his treatment, but much of our discussion will focus on the emotional aspect of life during and after treatment.  So, against that backdrop, let’s get started, and Steve, welcome to Cancer Interviews.

 

Steve Jacobsen: Thank you, Bruce, nice to be here.

 

BM: Now, we want to start off from the place we always start from, and that’s an attempt to get to know more about Steve Jacobsen, the person, as opposed to Steve Jacobsen, the patient.  So, Steve, if you would, tell us a bit about where you are from, what you have done for work, and when you have leisure time, what you like to do, that sort of thing.

 

SJ: I was born in Chicago in 1949, but my parents moved my sister and I to the West Coast when I was five years old.  I grew up in Costa Mesa, went to Costa Mesa High School, Orange Coast College, Cal State Fullerton, graduated from Cal State Fullerton.  I married at a rather young age.  My first marriage didn’t last, but I was married for ten years and had a son and a daughter.  They are both in their forties now and raised them in Irvine, California, which is a wonderful place to raise children.  Once they were raised, I moved to Ventura when I met the lady I married.  Her name is Dorothy and I have been with her for 27 years, and we have been married for 22 years, so, that’s what brought me to Ventura.  I had a career mostly in sales.  The last sales job I had was selling real estate.  Then I spent the last seven years of my working years with Ventura County.  I worked in Human Services.  I helped welfare recipients continue their eligibility for food stamps and Medical.  I met with those folks on a regular basis and analyzed whether they met the criteria to keep receiving those benefits.  That was probably one of the most interesting jobs I have ever had.  I worked with folks that were really struggling financially and I wasn’t and never really have, so, I developed an empathy for people that struggle.  That’s basically a thumbnail sketch.  I have done a lot of fun, interesting things in my life.  I was an announcer for the Olympic Games when the Olympics were in Los Angeles (in 1984), I have been a nightclub singer, done a tremendous amount of voiceover work in the video business, I was a sales manager for a video production company, as well.

 

BM: Let me ask you about the medical piece in this, getting people on Medical, enabling them to stay on it, and how you developed an increased sense of empathy from that.  From a distance, it would sound like what you were doing was very rewarding.  Is that correct?

 

SJ: Yes, it was.  I was not the kind of case worker who just shuffled paper around a desk.  I really tried to listen to people and try to understand why they were in such a financial predicament and why they were struggling to feed their children.  I think because of that emphasis on looking at other people’s challenges, I developed a real sense of empathy and compassion and I tried to be present for those folks, and I tried not to give too much unsolicited advice, but it gave me a tremendous appreciation for my own life.  I would drive home every day after work on my motorcycle and think to myself that I am the luckiest man on the face of the Earth to have the life that you have, and that really helped.  Then when I retired, I looked around and spent a year not doing anything before I made a decision to focus on what I really wanted to focus on.  What I chose to focus on was being a hospice volunteer.  I went through training, and that was a tremendously interesting journey as well, Bruce, because it was an honor to be with people on the last stages of their lives, to share that very intimate space with them.  The training that we got I would recommend to any human being, to go through hospice training, because you really discover things about your own life, and about the death and dying process, and it was a tremendous blessing to me to go through that.  And it was similar to working with my welfare recipients, it was a similar experience.

 

BM: In terms of hospice training, I am sure there were things you could be trained to do, but you can’t teach empathy, and I am guessing that as was the case with the welfare recipients, for these hospice patients, that, too, had its own level of fulfillment for you.

 

SJ: It very much did.  It was sad for me to deal with people that were struggling, but I found out that if I were just trying to be present for them, much like I tried to be present for my hospice patients and get my own ego out of the way and just really try to listen to them, and understand their human condition and their struggles, that was a great help to me, and I suppose it was a help to me in my cancer journey as well, understanding my own emotions and what I was going through.

 

BM: Now, let’s move on to your journey, and of course cancer has not been a part of your life all your life.  So, Steve, tell us what your health was like prior to your diagnosis.

 

SJ: I was an athlete.  I played basketball on a pretty high level in high school and college, and I fulfilled my service obligation playing for the United States Navy, and so I always considered myself an athlete.  So, I saw myself as very strong and I got lots of feedback over the years from people who knew me about how strong I was, you know, physically, not to lift tremendous amounts of weight, not that, but I always had this perception of myself as being a strong man, and healthy and vibrant man.  That’s the way I perceived myself, and when I got the cancer diagnosis, that was totally incongruent with my self-perception, and as for everyone it is a tremendous shock and surprise, and they process it in their own ways, but for me it was a challenge because I couldn’t see myself as a cancer patient, and what that all meant.

 

BM: Steve, what preceded that shock?  What tipped you off that something wasn’t quite right and that something needed medical attention?

 

SJ: I developed a lump on the (right) side of my neck.  I thought it was a swollen lymph node, and indeed it was.  Right away, I did what a lot of people do and went on the Internet, and googled swollen lymph nodes in the neck, and it did give me a sense that there could be something wrong.  Of course, I had confirmed when I went to my doctor.  My general practitioner, he took a look at it and immediately sent me to an ear, nose and throat doctor.  He looked at it and sent me for some tests and ultimately it was determined that, yes, indeed, the lymph node had some necrotic tissue, which is a sign there could be some dead tissue there as a result of maybe cancer.  That began the process.

 

BM: We mentioned right at the top that you were diagnosed with a form of head and neck cancer.  They said the type you were diagnosed with was, what?

 

SJ: It was called oropharyngeal cancer, and specifically what it was, they found cancer on the back of my tongue, where your tongue down to your Adam’s Apple, I guess.  It isn’t a part of one’s tongue that you can open your mouth and see, it was the back of my tongue.  There were no feelings, I didn’t have a sore throat.  There were no physical manifestations of the cancer, other than that lymph node.  I didn’t know anything was wrong with me, just this lymph node was the only warning sign that I had.  So, it was on the back of my tongue and also on the back of my tonsil.  My wife and I came to grips with the reality that I had cancer.  I went to Los Angeles and met with a cancer team and by that, I mean radiation oncologist and medical oncologist to deal with the chemotherapy aspect.  I also met with surgeons, and I was hoping they could do a quick surgery and be done with it, and I wouldn’t have to go through radiation or chemotherapy, but that was not what I was told.  I was told I would not want to have this addressed with a surgical procedure, and that they would assign me to a radiation/chemo regimen.  They told me at the time it was considered the gold standard treatment for oropharyngeal cancer, so I had some solace knowing I was going to get the best treatment, but I didn’t know what was in store for me beyond that.

 

BM: You mentioned radiation and chemo.  Was that the centerpiece of your treatment, or were there other aspects thereto?

 

SJ: There were other aspects to the treatment.  For example, when I got near the end of the seven-week regime of radiation and chemotherapy, I did that concurrently, I was told by one of the radiation therapists that was administering the radiation to me, he said most of our patients seem to do really well if they had a feeding tube.  I thought by that, I would have a tremendously sore throat and they would give me this magical mouthwash, not mouthwash, but it had lydocaine in it and you gargle it several times a day.  I thought that was just to deal with the horrific sore throat that I was told I would have.  When he said ‘feeding tube’, I thought this just means I don’t have to eat for a while because my throat is going to be so sore.  What they never told me is, was that I might have a difficult time swallowing.  The reality for me, Bruce, was that the feeding tube remained in place for six months, and during those six months, I had no idea if I would be able to eat food again.  I am big Dodger and Laker fan, I watch them on TV, and every commercial is a food commercial, and of course, food is associated with so much joy and happiness and parties, you know, good times and comfort and to think that I might be able to eat or swallow again was something that was the hardest part of my cancer journey for me to get my mind around.  I couldn’t even swallow my own saliva, it was so difficult.  My daughter is a speech therapist, and she gave me a lot of swallowing exercises to do, which I did consistently, day in, day out.  I am pretty optimistic person, but there were times even when I was doing the exercises and taking my little plastic spoon of warmed apple juice and beet broth, wondering if I would ever obtain the ability to eat normally again.  It was the toughest part of my journey, and it was for my wife, too.

 

BM: Steve, this makes your story a bit more unique compared to many of the others we have heard on this program.  We have had a lot of people go through chemotherapy and many of them understand the justification for going through chemotherapy because as unpleasant as it is, it kills the cancer; but if I am hearing you correctly, it sounds like chemo wasn’t the toughest part of your journey.  It was the emotional toll taken by (a) your not being able to swallow and (b) wondering if you would ever be able to do it again.  Is that fair to say?

 

SJ: To a degree, it is fair to say.  I think in retrospect because the swallowing issue was such a major focus on my part and my wife’s part, she didn’t want to be feeding for the rest of my life with syringe, with that being part of the story of our lives on a permanent basis, in large part, that overshadowed and maybe distracted me from the challenges of chemotherapy and radiation in and off themselves.  Certainly, looking back, there were many challenges as they related to radiation and chemotherapy, but I was so not focused on those.  Almost every waking minute of my life centered on the question of whether I was going to eat again, so I was distracted away from whatever challenges were brought on by radiation and chemotherapy.  I went through all the things I’d read about regarding chemo fog, I wasn’t quite as mentally sharp as I’d been, there was physical weakness, but in addition to my wife, I enjoyed some great support.  There is a lady who lives behind us, and she had had her journey with breast cancer.  She told me that one of the things that helped her was to keep moving as much as you possibly can, even if you feel like taking a nap.  You feel like sleeping most of the time because your energy is so sapped, just keep moving, she said.  That was probably one of the best pieces of advice that I got.  So, even when I had the feeding tube, and was going through the exercises, learning how to swallow again, not knowing if I would ever eat again, I still tried to walk every day, a mile, a mile and a half.  I still try to go up and down the stairs as many times as I could during the day, I still try to keep my body moving.  That was great advice because I think that helped me retain my strength after all the strength that was being zapped with all the treatments.  The constant body movement kept me physically and emotionally balanced, really kept me going.

 

BM: I hope this is one of the most pleasant questions I get to ask you.  How are you now, how is the state of your tongue and your ability to eat?

 

SJ: I got the feeding tube removed, I got a diagnosis when I got my first PET scan, three months after my treatment ended, I had a PET scan, and another one several months after that, and both PET scans revealed there was no more cancer.  I still go to my ear, nose and throat doctor.  He puts a tube down my nose, it goes into my throat, puts a camera on it, and he shows me the pictures he takes of my throat and there’s no cancer there.  Then I got the feeding tube removed.  I started very slow, I thought it would be a long process, but I got the go-ahead to drink a liquid drink.  It went down very slowly, but I was able to get it down and I after that I would have to have pureed food and go through a whole process.  I started with smoothies that my wife would make.  She put every imaginable thing in it, fruits and vegetables.  She was trying to fatten me up because I had gone from 212 pounds down to 177, so I had lost 35 pounds, but I kept moving, I kept trying to get those smoothies down.  Then one day I went to my ear, nose and throat guy and he said he didn’t know why I couldn’t start eating solid foods.  I flew home on a cloud and couldn’t wait to share that news with my wife.  She got so excited, she made some split pea soup that is normally pretty thick, but she put in a blender and kinda loosened it up a bit and I had the whole can, and I was deliriously happy.  Then I was told I could eat hamburger, so we went and bought some meat loaf, and I had meat loaf the very next night with some vegetables and some sweet potatoes, everything went down, and I was like a kid in a candy store.  Every meal was an adventure.  Food didn’t quite taste the same.  It didn’t taste like I remember it tasting.  That didn’t matter.  I never lost my sense of taste, but when you put any food in your mouth for six months and you are suddenly reacquainting yourself with what things taste like, there’s a little bit of a learning curve and you have to get used to what things taste like again.  From that point on, all I had to deal with was the psychological aspect of what I have gone through.

 

BM: All right, let’s transition to that because that is something you want to talk about here, the emotional piece, and I would think the emotional piece would change as the rollercoaster of your experience changed.  So, let’s hit the rewind button and go back to when you were first diagnosed, having the feeding tube, having it inserted, and you have touched on this somewhat, but maybe let’s retrace some old steps and introduce some new ones, but just if you would, describe what your emotions were when you weren’t eating and you had no assurance the day would come when normalcy would return.  How tough was that?

 

SJ: If somebody would have told me, given those sets of circumstances, that I would be told I would have throat cancer and that I would have a feeding tube and as a result you might now ever eat again, if some body told me those would be the circumstances that would be served up on a platter and told me that the feeding tube would far supersede the fear of cancer, I would have said they are nuts.  Cancer would take precedence over any of that, but that was far from the case.  Like I said, the number one fear for me, and I will again mention the word, ‘fear,’ because that has been a constant companion of mine throughout this journey.  I saw what my wife, Dorothy, went through.  She was trying to push these syringes into me.  We would sit on barstools on she would do this hundreds and hundreds of pushing her thumb on that syringe and then getting to a point in which she developed an inflamed tendon from all that repetitive pushing.  She had to stop doing it and I then had to feed myself.  The other thing is, with swallowing, when it was at its worst, I couldn’t swallow my own saliva.  I had to spit my own saliva out.  One of the big fears I had was, even if I could start eating again, we couldn’t find a doctor who could tell us this would never again be a problem.  It was a fruitless effort.  When I got to the point in which I thought I could swallow, I still asked myself, “How am I going to drink water?’  Water is one of the most difficult things to swallow, so even if I could eat again, how will I ever drink water?  So, that was a constant fear.  Then when I finally started eating again and finally started to get water down again, when my wife offered me different types of food, it created an anxiety all by itself because I didn’t know if I could get that down.  I used to dream about whether I will ever have a slice of pizza again, or, a hot dog at a Dodger game?  Will I be able to eat some of the comfort foods?  Well, I can tell you now that I can eat anything and everything.  I have no problem eating or drinking anything.  I just recently had my first beer, and that was exciting. 

 

BM: Steve, I have been kind of zigging and zagging here with the chronology because I want to talk about Dorothy’s role in all this.  Before we get to that, we talked about the difficult components in this rollercoaster ride, but because we want these interviews to be educational and inspirational, and for somebody who have the cancer you have dealt with, provide us with something inspirational in terms of the emotional aspects of this and expound on what it was like when you learned you could eat whatever you wanted.

 

SJ: I was deliriously happy, and relieved at the same time.  I knew when I got to the point in which I could get things down that I had the answer to my biggest fears that I would spend the rest of my life on a feeding tube, which to me would have represented a very low quality of life and would have made my world very small.  It just opened so many doors, but as I said earlier, fear has been a constant companion.  I really discovered some things about myself when you go through something like this.  I found out some things about myself that I didn’t know to be true.  It’s been said that in order to sing the blues, you have to experience the blues, and right about now, I could be a pretty good blues singer because I spent a lot of blue and dark moments.  I realized I am stronger than I ever imagined when going through something like that, I went through a lot of self-questioning because at times I didn’t feel very strong.  I felt very weak.  I felt very dependant on Dorothy.  She got to a point where she experienced caregiver burnout.  She sought help, seeking therapy and medication.  She had her own issues to deal with, and I told her one day I would have to deal with this on my own and that was a great shock to me, but I had so much respect and love for her, everything I had seen her do to try and help me.  And then we were locked up in the house during COVID, so when I saw what she went through, I encouraged her to do whatever she could to take care of herself.  I then had to turn inward and identify my own personal strength.  I then sought other sources of help.  I sought a therapist.  I did acupuncture.  One of the greatest sources of help for me was a website called ‘CALM’.  The site has a ‘daily calm,” and it leads you to a daily meditation that lasts about ten minutes.  I have developed a lot of internal clarity and wisdom in terms of how to deal with my emotions and the fears that came with wondering if the next ache or body pain is going to be indicative of some other traumatic event that I may have to go through, and learning how to be comfortable with all that, and not let that dictate my life.  Then I found this website called “DARE.”  ‘D’ is for ‘disarm,’ ‘A; is for ‘accept,’ ‘R’ stands for ‘Run towards your anxiety,’ not away from it, and ‘E’ stands for ‘Engage,’ engage in life, let your fears be part of your journey, but don’t let it define your life.  There are lots of different discussions on that website that brings back focus on how to not let anxiety control who you are.  I have gotten a lot of help, but what I haven’t mentioned is the tremendous amount I have gotten from family and friends, and of course, my wife has been the number one person in my corner, and I so grateful to be able to say that to you.

 

BM: Let me ask you about the external sources of support, CALM and DARE, and how they helped you, to any extent did they help Dorothy and if so, to what extent?

 

SJ: I think they helped Dorothy.  She started to meditate after suffering from caregiver burnout issues, with help from the CALM website, that was really helpful for her, and just seeing the growth in me was gratifying to her.  She could see how I was handling this stuff on my own and not dependent on her for every emotional need.  The benefit to Dorothy was seeing clear improvement in the way I was handling and processing all that we had been through and all that I continued to go through once I went back to eating normally

 

BM: Two other things I want to cover Steve and then I want to wrap things up here.  Number one, this whole emotional component with the cancer journey, whether one has been diagnosed or one is a caregiver, overall, would you say in your estimation, that the emotional piece is overlooked and undersupported?

 

SJ: I can’t verify that.  I can just look to my own experience and say that is generally true.  The emotional and psychological components are things caregivers I dealt with are aware of what a journey that is for cancer-diagnosed people, but I felt I had to look toward my own self to regain my strength, regain my own pre-cancer attitude about life and confidence because I felt I lost a lot of confidence in myself, in my physicality, in my ability to handle tough emotional situations.

 

BM: Neither you nor I are in a position to make policy, but if you could write the script in terms of what the health care community does in terms of the emotional aspect of one’s cancer journey?

 

SJ: That’s an easy one for me.  When I went to Los Angeles, they told me I was going to be meeting with the cancer team.  One part of the cancer team that was conspicuously absent was a therapist, somebody familiar with the emotional components, so that I could have somebody who could help me along those lines because, like I say, I had to do my own searching within myself and outside my world for people that would help me get through this journey because I had never been there before.  I didn’t have that many people in my circle that had cancer, so, everything was new to me.  I ended up having to use the medical staff to help me deal with emotional issues, and they weren’t equipped to do that.  Doctors are scientists.  They are not necessarily trained to have good bedside manner.  So much you process with your head, but what needs to be processed by the heart is missing in terms of guidance and support, so, if I were in charge, I would have such a person assigned to every cancer patient that can help you walk through your journey to embark.  Without such a person, you just have to figure it out for yourself.

 

BM: We are going to conclude, and we always wrap up with the same question.  Namely, if you had a private audience with someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer, if there were an overarching message you want to pass along based on your experience, what would it be?

 

SJ: First, I would presume that I cannot give that person any “advice.”  If they were interested, all I could share with them is what I have already shared in this interview.  One of the things I didn’t share is I would say, what I discovered, is that I have an inner teacher and I have had enough life experience challenges to know I am capable of getting through a lot.  That inner teacher provides me with a lot of answers in terms of how to deal with things.  That said, I think a good therapist holds up a mirror and allows you to see what you already know to be true and maybe have forgotten.  Your inner strength, your core beliefs, who you are as a human being, which cancer forces you to address.  I just would tell them that my journey was about addressing how I am going to get through all this and return to the type of person I knew before cancer asserted itself.  There is a lot of help available and I sought the help.  I think I took pretty good care of myself physically and emotionally, and I happen to be a pretty optimistic person and that’s one of the things that was really driven home during this journey.  I have a really strong sense of the glass being half-full and that really helped me maneuver.  I cannot imagine if I were a negative person what I would do.

 

BM: We’ve been hearing from Steve Jacobsen of Ventura, California, and Steve, I think there is a lot that you have shared with us that be of help to someone confronted with a situation similar to yours, so, Steve, really want to thank you for taking the time to take with us.

 

SJ: My pleasure.  Thank you, Bruce.

 

BM: That’s going to wrap up this segment of Cancer Interviews.  Again, we hope that what you heard can aid your cancer journey or that of a loved one.  So, until next time, we’ll see you on down the road.


SHOW NOTES


TITLE:  Steve Jacobsen, Head and Neck Cancer Survivor – Ventura, California, USA

 

Steve Jacobsen was diagnosed with a form of head and neck cancer. What began as a swollen lymph node in his neck became a diagnosis of oropharyngeal cancer, which affected the back of his tongue, and necessitated the insertion of a feeding tube.

 

Steve followed a regimen of swallowing exercises but didn’t know if he would ever swallow or eat solid foods again.  After radiation treatment and chemotherapy, a PET scan revealed the cancer was gone.

It was a slow process, but Steve was able to once again eat whatever he wanted.  That process took a toll on his mental and emotional health.  Steve firmly believes for everyone diagnosed with cancer, part of their care team should be a therapist who can help to keep the patient's emotions on a straight path.

 

Additional Resources:

 

 

 

 

 

Time Stamps:

 

08:45 Steve thought he was strong, so his cancer diagnosis came as a shock.

09:30 A swollen lymph node was detected in his neck.

11:15 Diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer.

14:20 When Steve was first told about his needing a feeding tube.

15:46 After the tube was inserted, he didn’t know if he would ever swallow again.

19:03 Learned the importance of being as mobile as possible during treatment.

22:05 Steve got the good news he could again eat solid foods.

28:27 When Steve learned it was okay to eat anything he wanted.

31:00 Wife Dorothy suffered from ‘caregiver burnout.’

32:35 In order to cope, Steve turned to external sources, including meditation.

38:03 Steve is asked what he would like to see from the health care community in terms of dealing with the emotional aspects of the cancer journey.

41:22 Message to those diagnosed with cancer.

 

KEYWORDS (tags):

 

head and neck cancer

swollen lymph node

necrotic tissue

oropharyngeal

radiation treatment

swallowing exercises

chemotherapy

caregiver burnout

PET scan

 



 

 

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