Pittsburgh-area musician's customized tongue surgery saves his life and his 'purpose'
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- When cancer threatened to silence a local musician, the surgery to save his life could also have ended his career. So two UPMC doctors worked to re-imagine his surgery to make sure he wouldn't have to hang up his guitar.
For musician Christopher Lee Simmonds, when what he thought was a canker sore on his tongue turned out to be something much different, he thought that might be the end of his art.
"I'm gonna lose all my voices, I'm not gonna be able to sing, I'm not gonna be able to play. I was terrified," Simmonds said.
Typically for a tongue cancer patient, UPMC otolaryngologists and head and neck cancer surgeons Dr. Kevin Contrera and Dr. Matt Spector would cut out the cancer, then rebuild the tongue.
"Traditionally for reconstructing this type of defect, you would use tissue from the wrist but that can leave tendon exposure, nerve injury and immobility," Contrera said.
For Simmonds, who plays the guitar, piano and lots of other instruments, that was a non-starter.
"I said if I have nerve damage in my fingers and I can't sing, I don't really -- my purpose is gone. And he said, 'well, we can't let that happen' and he said immediately, 'we have another way,'" Simmonds said.
That other way turned out to be using the tissue from Simmonds's upper arm and elbow to reconstruct his tongue.
"There's very few places in the country that do this type of procedure for him," Spector said.
Up to the day before the surgery, Simmonds never stopped playing and never stopped singing.
"But I had to finish that song because in my mind I thought this might be the last song I ever sing," Simmonds said.
He underwent four hours of surgery that the surgical oncologists say was like a "self-transplant," with the two of them working alongside each other to eliminate the cancer and rebuild Simmonds; tongue.
"We're really trying to not create just a generic surgery for a generic disease, we're trying to individualize and customize the surgery so we may be more ambitious with certain surgical goals for patients who sort of share that level of ambition," said Contrera.
Simmonds says he was in the ICU for five days, and on day six, he went right back into his studio.
"I've been playing and recording every day, a lot of music, all kinds of -- I probably have eight complete pieces of music at this point that I'm like, 'I can't wait to sing on,'" Simmonds said.
He says he feels like a second grader again -- re-learning to speak and swallow, and pronouncing certain things is still a struggle. But he's already recorded himself singing again, just over a month since his tongue was rebuilt.
And Simmonds says he met a volunteer in the ICU, who has given him another goal.
"He had his entire jaw removed and reconstructed and I could not tell. He looked like a completely normal man. So I want to do that. Once I can, I would like to go and help other people feel good when they're in that place."
Contributor: KDKA-TV Producer Tory Wegerski
