Oral cancer – hard to treat, radiation can cause permanent damage to tongue (as is the case with a couple of my patients) and then they can no longer speak. Same with patients that have to have their voice box removed in order to prevent the spread of their larynx cancer.

He writes so much online and in the paper it seems like film critic Roger Ebert talks to us every day, but he lost his lower jaw and voice to cancer four years ago. Esquire had a profile just last month.

Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can’t remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn’t happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn’t as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz’s ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren’t they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310-2#ixzz0hzePgVtO

Nodes are a big problem for singers. Also, the unscientific quality of “blowout”—sort of an overstrain on your voice.

Jeannie Deva, who developed a biology/anatomy-based singing method, might be a good source for more info: http://www.jeanniedeva.com/

Full disclosure: I took voice lessons at her Boston studio, though not from her, in college. Also, her website is a little hard on the eyes.

I have two older men friends who have had tongue cancer. Radiation is the common treatment, if you’re lucky.

Julie Andrews filed a malpractice lawsuit against the doctors who performed throat surgery to remove throat nodules. She said they botched the operation, leaving her with hoarseness, permanent vocal chord damage and other complications, and she will never be able to sing professionally again.

Laryngitis