Diagnosed With TONGUE CANCER As A Performer!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]I felt as if I had a hair at the back of my tongue that I couldn't scratch off.

[00:00:04]It's probably cancer right away. That was the first thing he said to me.

[00:00:10]My body's my tool. I need to my body to perform. I need to, you know, to sing and dance. I have my voice. I started tab dancing when I was 6 years old in Canada and then moved to New York City when I was uh 20 and uh started performing on Broadway. So, I'm a singer, dancer, performer, triple threat. Uh my wife and I, we have our uh twoperson show that we tour across country.

[00:00:32]2023, we were doing our shows across the country and I got diagnosed and so we cancelled basically everything. We were actually moving from New York City to California and it's when I was driving cross country that the symptoms came in and I was like, "Oh, I should get that checked out." I felt as if I had a hair at the back of my tongue that I couldn't scratch off. It's as if like I had something and I kept like I was like what is that? Why do I feel like you know like when you have something stuck in your tongue like a hair or a piece of dust and a kernel from a popcorn that's like the back but it's not it's very light. It's not very very distinct. I was like what is that? What is that? And that was like for a couple two three weeks I just it kind of came and went and I I was just like oh okay it's it's my it's nothing. Then I got to California and my lymph node was swollen and I didn't have a cough. I didn't have bronchitis and I was like that's I don't I don't like this. I really don't like this swelling for no reason. So went uh and saw a doctor. Got my general physical and I said hey this is swollen.

[00:01:39]I'd like to get this checked out. She's like okay yeah go see a ENT. The ENT had no bedside manners. He felt that. He's like, and then he scoped the back of my neck or with, you know, my tongue. And then he said, uh, he's like, there's an irregular swelling on the left side of your tongue and this, I don't like this swell. It's probably cancer. Right away, that's the first thing he said to me.

[00:02:00]He's like, it's probably cancer. I was like, oh, okay, thanks. Got the biopsy and then a week and a half later, I came back into the office and with a big smile, I was like, I was right. It's cancer. I was like, why are you smiling at me?

[00:02:13]>> We cancelled basically everything. so I could heal and get better and get rid of the cancer and um and uh come back to being healthy. So, as soon as I was diagnosed, it was just like, okay, what do I do? What do I have to do to to keep singing, to keep performing, and to to keep living? It was surreal. I mean, I've always been very healthy. I've always, you know, done eat ate well, work out, uh taking care of my body because my body is my tool. I need to my body to perform. I need to, you know, to sing and dance. I have my voice. So when that diagnosis came through, I was just like, "Oh, okay." But, and everybody knows this about me, I'm very I'm very positive. And so I've always been very uh very optimistic with everything. You know, my wife emotional and more, you know, feeling driven than my brain, logic, just optimism. She was upset and my mom, too. My mom got really upset. My mom had a son from a first marriage. My brother was 10 years older than me and he passed away when I was 23, so 33 from a an overdose. So, she was just her in her head. She's like, I don't want to lose another son. My wife was like, you know, she saw me the way I was being optimistic. And of all the the research and the the studies and everything that u treatments and percentages, etc. I said, listen, it's going it's going to be fun. Let's just got to do what we got to do and go through it together. We love to entertain. We love to perform together and do what we love together.

[00:03:43]>> When I was talking with my surgeon with the radiation therapist, I was like, "Is this going to affect affect my voice? Is this am I still going to be able to perform?" That was like one of my one of big first question. And both of them, they said, "Listen, the the area your tongue is there. Your vocal cords are here." They said of and they were very honest. They said we've never treated a singer. But all the surgeries of all the the treatments we've had, no patient has come back saying their voice had changed. So I was like, "Okay, great.

[00:04:15]I'll trust you. Let's go. Curveballs in life. You just got to you grab your bat and and try to hit them." There's no rhyme or reason. It's not selective.

[00:04:23]It's not anything I could have done or changed in my life. It's not like, "Oh, I could I should have done that." It's really like the the markers were from derived from HPV. So based on how they the tumor was at the base of my tongue really far back. So surgeon said yes we can operate and UCI in California has robotics. So it's a robot surgeon. Boom. It was so small it literally was like yeah we don't need to do reconstruction. It's there's nothing need to graph. It's literally a tiny little corner of my tongue on the side.

[00:04:56]There was never a time in my head where I was like, "Oh, I'm going to have to lose my tongue or part of it or relearn to talk or anything. It was really, you know, they said it's small. They never said anything else." After speaking with a surgeon, she said, "There's a chance I'm able to get the perimeter and we won't need additional treatment. There is a chance that you don't need chemo that you don't need radiation." I was like, "Good. I'll take that chance. If I do need, I'll do chemo or radiation.

[00:05:19]I'll chat with them, too." It was so far at the back of my tongue that they only got 1 millm perimeter instead of the three that they wanted. After that, they did the neck dissection. After that, in the pathology report, my encologist, I sat down and I said, "Listen, if you were in my shoes right now, would you get chemotherapy?"

[00:05:38]And she said, "You're 43 years old, you're young, let's do everything we can so this never comes back." Yes, I would get chemo in your in your position. I was like, "Okay, let's do that." went to the radiation therapist said the same thing. I said, "Listen," he was the first one to say, "I don't want to do radiation if we don't need to. I don't want to overtreat for something we don't need." But he said, "For for you and your position, you're again, you're young. We don't want this to come back.

[00:06:04]We do this, it won't come back or the odds are it won't come back." I was like, "Okay, I did radiation and chemo."

[00:06:11]Even though I didn't want to do any. I was hoping for just the surgery. I was doing both at the same time. And everything started at once. So, I did radiation five times a week, Monday through Friday where I'd go. Radiation is fine. You know, the cream and everything. The hardest part was losing my sense of taste. Come to find out, you know, the worst thing was my vocal cords got bruised because of the anesthesia tube. So, it wasn't the treatment, it wasn't that surgery, like the tongue is here. It wasn't the radiation. It's because the the anesthesia tube basically like was on my vocal cords for the surgery and then they were bruised.

[00:06:43]So, it was like a a recovery, a 6 months recovery because of the at the tube, not because of the surgery or anything else.

[00:06:50]It was because the anesthesia that's what affected my voice the most. I was getting back to performing, but I could not do some of the songs that had the higher range or I we had adjusted. But I was so frustrated. I was just uh I was really really angry and just like just wanted to sing and you know trying to to what I knew that I could sing how I could sing before and then like for seven eight months I was just so frustrating. It was really frustrating because you're constantly trying to get better and and then at one point you're like if this is my range if I can't sing anymore or can't sing what I used to yeah we're going to have to adjust and it'll be fine. the audience won't know what they're missing, but I know what my capabilities are and what I can do. When it came back, I just I was so happy. I was really like tears in my eyes. I was like, "Yes, oh gosh, God, it's back."

[00:07:40]Happy to say that 2 and a half years later now and we are uh still completely in remission. Um no sign of the cancer coming back and we are performing our faces off and back at it. It was amazing to be able to come back and and perform and have like a quote unquote homecoming, but it was just really great. And now it it feels like we're back with a vengeance.

[00:08:02]It's like not to have a chip on my shoulder, but it's like now also we're not getting younger. And I'm not thinking this way, but what if it comes back and then I have to take some time off again in the future? So, it's like, let's get everything we want to get done and be aggressive about it and and perform and push and really like hit the ground running.

[00:08:25]>> Oh, there's a moment where we grab some stools, we sit at the edge of the stage and kind of talk about things uh our struggles and so it's it leads us into some inspiring songs that we sing, but literally, you know, kind of the format of our shows. We sing a song and then we kind of introduce ourselves to talk about, you know, where we're from, what our journey. And so our shows are usually anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.

[00:08:50]And I kind of say, you know, what happened. I was like, when I was a couple years ago, I was driving and I started feeling like there was tickle at the back of my throat. Saw a doctor and I was diagnosed with squamic cell carcinoma. tongue cancer surgery and kind of talk a bit about my recovery quickly and kind of basically say, you know, at the at the end of the day, always listen to your body. Talk about, you know, don't be scared to go see your doctor and um focus on the the light at the end of the film. No matter what the diagnosis, focus on the recovery, stay positive, and singing and dancing helps.

[00:09:25]>> Hey everyone, we're Nick and Desi. If we haven't met yet, we're Broadway performers who are married and who are from New York City.

[00:09:33]>> That's what we love to do. And people see our show and they say, "Uh, when it's the best show they've seen, they feel they leave feeling inspired and just happy because it's an escapism. It really is. There's so much going on in the world and we don't know what the struggles people are going through. So, we just love to share our story to inspire and to just say, hey, you know what? It's okay. It's okay to feel how you feel, but also it's okay to to be able to escape and just be entertained and forget about it for a second, you know, because healing is not just focusing and being angry or or just always, you know, just woe is me and why did this happen to me? That's what we love to do with our show. We love to to just provide entertainment to to also have people be like, "Hey, you know what? Let's just go see hear this story.

[00:10:21]Hear some great songs. Here's some see some great tap dancing. be inspired. See this couple who are having so much fun on stage. No matter what struggles they went through, no matter what things, you know, life threw at them here, they are still doing what they love to do and sharing that passion with people around.