According to Steve Hendrix’s personal calculation, he’d shaved his face “almost 9,000 times before something about the routine shocked [him] out of autopilot.”
A lump about the size of his thumb knuckle was present just under his jaw.
Even though Hendrix was only 51 at the time, personally assessed himself as being in good health, and had just returned home from finishing a five-mile run outside, he couldn’t deny the sinking feeling in his heart. It was enough to make him put his razor down and call his doctor, even as he stood around in just a towel.
He knew he had cancer.
Hendrix went to see Dr. Arjun Joshi at the George Washington University School of Medicine, where a laryngoscopy inspection of his nose, throat, and mouth allowed doctors to come to the same conclusion Hendrix had in his own bathroom.
The lump was, indeed, oropharyngeal cancer (cancer of the neck, throat, tonsils, and tongue) caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Hendrix’s cancer was already at stage 4 because it had already spread to the lymph node in his neck.
Dr. Joshi told Hendrix, “You’re going to be fine.” And Hendrix himself repeated that mantra to his family and friends until he believed it himself.
This didn’t mean, however, that Hendrix’s recovery process was any easier.
His doctors were often conflicted about whether or not to prescribe him with radiation and chemotherapy treatment because they couldn’t decide if his cancer – given where it was located on his tongue – was able to be removed through surgery. While radiation and chemotherapy would also remove the tumor, it would be at a price; there was a chance Hendrix would lose his ability to swallow after all the treatment was finished.
Hendrix sought out the advice of three different specialists, finally admitting, “This disease’s treatability actually led to the scariest thing I faced as a cancer patient: choice.”
He ultimately decided to go with Dr. Joshi’s advice – undergo chemotherapy treatment, then surgery to remove any remaining tumors.
It was, thankfully, a huge success.
The treatment did take its toll on Hendrix’s health – his energy levels, his clear mind, and his hair – but now, just one year after his shaving routine was disturbed by the lump in his neck, Hendrix is doing as well as he ever had been.
He completed a 5K across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge with a few of his running buddies recently. They’d all been there when he first noticed the lump in his neck a year ago.
This year, not one of them even mentioned Hendrix’s cancer.
