John Hark

Hannibal, MO

Throat Cancer Survivor

I call cancer my demon in the dark. It’s there eating at you, and you don’t know it until you get so bad or something happens, and all of a sudden you find it.

In my case, I was a perfectly healthy, feeling fine, 226-pound emergency management director for the city of Hannibal and Marion County in September 2004. No sickness, nothing. Nothing, that is, except some dizzy spells when I would bend over. Then, on one of those spells, I fell, split my head open and had to have stitches.

My wife was getting concerned, because this wasn’t the first time I’d fallen. She wanted me to get checked out. So, first, I went to an ear specialist, thinking maybe I was having inner ear problems. Everything was fine. Then, I went to a heart specialist, thinking maybe my arteries to the brain were clogged and that was the problem. But, they were open and in good shape. However, that doctor found what he thought was a small, clear pocket cyst on my thyroid. My wife had recently had her thyroid removed, so I went to her surgeon. He examined me and said it was no cyst but an enlarged lymph node. And then cautioned that any man over 50 with an enlarged lymph node in the throat needed to have it checked out.

So, in January 2005, in Columbia, Missouri, I had it biopsied. The results showed cancer. Doctors then took out 55 lymph nodes and did a partial neck dissection, removing the jugular vein on the right side of my neck. But, they couldn’t find the source of the cancer. This was troubling.

We began doing our own research, talked to people and prayed. My wife remembered seeing an 800 number for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) on television, but couldn’t remember the number. She asked her mom to help us look for it. While I was recovering from the surgery, my mother-in-law called with the number. We called CTCA and spoke to Charyl, an Oncology Information Specialist, who literally took over. Within 72 hours, she’d made arrangements for us to come to Tulsa to be seen by the doctors at the facility there.

On the day we left for Tulsa in March 2005, a good friend of mine called to tell me I’d been added to 17 additional prayer lists. I had no idea how much that was going to mean to me in a very short time.

In Tulsa, I had a PET scan, and the doctors noticed two or three places in the throat area that indicated cancer. Dr. Kelly believed the source of the cancer was under my larynx. That was the first time someone had been able to pinpoint the source. The scan also showed cancer in six lymph nodes in my right lung.

At that point, we went home, bought a used motor home and drove back to Tulsa for treatment. CTCA called in a special thoracic surgeon to make an incision in my throat and go down into my lung to biopsy the infected lymph nodes there to see if they were a second type of cancer or the same squamous-cell carcinoma in my throat. But, when the surgeon got in there, he couldn’t find anything cancerous in my lung.

The only thing I can possibly attribute that to are the prayers that were going on for me through those prayer lists. I told my wife I didn’t think I’d lived the kind of life that deserved divine intervention, but that was the only explanation for the cancer not being there. So, I thanked God and accepted the blessing.

From March through May of 2005, I underwent radiation and chemo. With throat cancer, the radiation causes your saliva to dry up; you can’t swallow, and you think you’re going to choke. It’s very hard. I thought I was a tough guy. But I found out I wasn’t. Sometimes, on that radiation table, with the mask on to protect my face, I’d just pray, “It’s you and me, Jesus. Help me get through this, one day at a time.”

After treatment ended, we moved back home, but we return to Tulsa every three months for my check ups. So far, I’m still classified as cancer free, though I have some inflammation in the throat and some other complications. I’ve lost a lot of weight and am down to 150 pounds, but, if this is my thorn in life, I’ll carry it.

Through this cancer journey, I think I’ve gone through every stage and feeling a cancer patient has, from fear to the angry “why me” stage. About two weeks before each of my check-ups, I get into the “what if” mode. But the closer we get to CTCA, the more that mode lightens, because I think that if the “what ifs” come to life, I’m at the right place.

Because of this cancer, I’m becoming a different person. Every day is a new day for me. I try to look at the things I used to take for granted and see them now for what they really are. I acknowledge now how beautiful every cloud, every blade of grass is.

I attribute where I am today, and especially all I’ve come through during this cancer battle, to my good Lord, my wife, and CTCA. CTCA is more than just a cancer facility; it’s a place where I don’t just get treatment, I get love, encouragement. I’m treated like a person. I believe God led us here.