My recovery from my surgery and radiation sessions was relatively smooth and uneventful. (Ah, how soon we forget)
Radiation “killed” both my saliva and taste buds. Everything tasted metallic. Even a long-top bottle of cold beer tasted flat and tasteless. It took me a year or longer to regain any taste for food. I did finally regain my sense of taste, and my saliva returned to about 80% of normal.
Gradually over a longer period of time, my appetite did normalize, meaning that the BBQ steak skewered off the grill matched the memory of what I’d been missing for the past period of time.
By the summer of 2005, I was retired from my career with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and had transitioned to working law enforcement consultancies in several regions of South-East Asia. My wife Terry and I lived for the better part of 6 years in Laos, where my knowledge and experience were mined to increase the law enforcement capacity of a newly formed environmental law enforcement department. Terry became involved in the country’s Women’s International Group, and through this aid organization, our social life was rich, and we made many good friends.
It was a wonderful mixture of work, play and travel. We were suited to the cultural environment and blessed with the privilege of being welcomed into this wonderful culture.
Sometime in late 2012, I started to experience voice changes. We had just returned home from a recent contract in Laos and had other irons in the fire for 2013, so I had no reason to delay a return to the Canadian Cancer Clinic in Ottawa for a follow-up assessment.
While that assessment revealed no recurrence of cancer, it was noted that one of my vocal cords was getting lazy. I was dealing with my original surgeon during this examination, and after prodding him on what the cause and impact could be, he revealed that the impacts from radiation treatment extend far beyond the application and recovery period. I left the clinic with a feeling that I had dodged another bullet (I didn’t have a recurrence) and that I could push through with the inconvenience of a lazy cord. As months passed, I felt that my condition was continuing to be stable, but in fact I was just good at compensating.
Slowly but certainly, I was losing more of my voice, and food was becoming difficult to swallow.
During one of my next visits to the clinic, I was examined by an intern, who was perhaps more forthcoming than my doctor.
“Yes, there is progression, and there are some remedies, but I’d say (as he lowered his voice to a whisper) in your situation you will require a tracheostomy in the future.”
Over the next few years, I continued my work in South-East Asia, returning permanently to Canada in 2020 when the pandemic hit the world with force. During this time, and working with my family doctor, I consulted with speech therapists, acupuncturists, neurologists, and obtained clinical examinations from reputed doctors and specialists. There was little knowledge gained and limited promises offered.
In 2021 my physical activity took a blow; I was losing rotational motion in my shoulder. Thinking that this weakness was the result of a tennis injury, I sought the expertise of a physiotherapist, a chiropractor, and a massage therapist. None of these therapies were successful. I had already stopped playing tennis. I switched to Pickleball until my whole right arm gave out on me. To compensate and keep on playing, I switched to playing with my left arm while awaiting further tests.
In 2025, a Nerve Study Assessment revealed that a nerve running under my right armpit from my Brachial Plexus was not functioning, and that while physiotherapy might delay the onset of further damage, the damage done was irreversible.
And in trying to figure out what went wrong, the words of my original surgeon played a tune that he had sung before; “The effects of radiation are long-term, some arising from treatments in previous years.
In this particular case, my nerve was killed in 2001, it just took 20 years to die.
This final realization was a shock. Every other injury that I had ever had in my life was mitigated in some way to make it “acceptable” and allow me to carry-on. Suddenly, two issues in a row left me vulnerable and the new caretaker of an actual “disability.”
I felt that I was on a spiral leading down to a very dark place.
