I was a professional singer. My voice wasn’t simply how I earned a living — it was how I made sense of myself. It was confidence, identity, connection. It was the part of me that walked into a room first, before my body did. When your voice is your work, your voice is also your safety net: the thing you rely on when everything else is uncertain. work, your voice is also your safety net: the thing you rely on when everything else is uncertain.
That’s why, when I found a lump in my neck, I did what a lot of busy, capable people do. I minimised it. Years before, I’d had a tiny benign cyst that was removed easily. The memory of that “nothing” became permission to treat this as “probably nothing” too. I had a diary full of performances, contracts, people expecting me to show up. I didn’t feel ill. I wasn’t in pain. I felt healthy. So I carried on.
A scan was eventually arranged. I went in expecting the usual reassurance — a medical version of “you’re fine, don’t worry”. Instead, what looked like one small lump turned out to be something far bigger: behind it was a cluster of tumours. A biopsy followed. Then came the appointment that split my life into before and after.
They told me I would need surgery and radiotherapy. At first, radiotherapy was explained in the gentlest terms: you might feel tired; your skin might redden, like sunburn. It sounded unpleasant, but manageable — a short storm to get through.
Then someone asked what I did for a living.
When I said “I’m a singer”, the room shifted. Not dramatically, not theatrically — just enough for me to notice. There was a pause. A glance between professionals. A careful recalculation. I could feel a sentence coming that didn’t fit in the tidy list of side effects I’d just been given.
And then it arrived.
“Your voice will be permanently damaged.”
That word — permanently — didn’t land like information. It landed like a loss. In an instant, the cancer diagnosis stopped being about tumours and became about identity. I didn’t hear the rest properly because my mind had already sprinted ahead to the future: a voice I didn’t recognise, cancelled work, the humiliation of trying and failing to do the one thing I’d always been able to do. I imagined myself in rooms where I couldn’t project, couldn’t fill space, couldn’t be the person I’d always been. It wasn’t vanity. It was grief, arriving early.
What surprised me was what came next. I didn’t feel sad first. I didn’t feel brave. I felt devastated — because in that moment it didn’t sound like “treatment”, it sounded like losing my voice. I didn’t refuse because I didn’t understand the seriousness; I refused because I couldn’t face what it could take from me. I wasn’t turning my back on help — I was trying to protect the part of me that had always been my life. I never believed I was dying — I just couldn’t face losing my voice.
Part of what fuelled that refusal was the cruel psychological trick of early cancer: I felt fine. I could still perform. I could still talk. I could still sing. My body was not giving me the kind of evidence my brain expected from something “serious”. So my brain clung to the only proof it trusted: normality. If I can sing, I can’t be that ill. And if I’m not that ill, why would I agree to something that threatens my voice forever?
We reached a compromise. I underwent a nine-hour radical neck dissection. I threw myself at recovery with the same stubborn determination I brought to my work. I told myself I’d be back quickly and completely, that I’d beat this and keep my voice intact. Within months, I was back on stage.
From the outside, that probably looked like strength, like resilience, like a victory.
Inside, it made denial even easier. I could point to my life and say, “See? I’m fine.” The fact I was still performing felt like a loophole in the diagnosis, as if the ability to sing could disprove what the scan had already shown. Doctors continued to urge further treatment because my tumours were rare and aggressive. I heard the words. I understood them intellectually. But emotionally, I was still stuck on that one sentence: your voice will be permanently damaged.
It’s hard to explain what it’s like when the very treatment designed to save you is also the thing you fear will erase you. People assume it’s a straightforward choice — live or die. But when your voice is your identity, the choice doesn’t feel like that. It feels like choosing between survival and self. It feels like a gamble where the stakes are not only medical, but personal.
Then the cancer returned.
Within three months, more tumours appeared. I had another surgery. Then, within months again, it came back — this time on the other side of my neck. Twelve tumours in total.
That was the day I broke down. Not because I suddenly thought I was dying, but because the story I’d been telling myself finally collapsed. I had delayed because I couldn’t face what treatment meant for my career. I had bargained with reality because I couldn’t bear the loss that sentence contained. I even decided I wouldn’t start treatment until I had fulfilled my performance contracts — as if professionalism could hold cancer at arm’s length for a little longer.
After surgery to remove aggressive tumours from my throat I was told I would need an Intensive course of Radiotherapy, This would mean my voice would be permanently damaged. I decided to record this before it was too late and remember my voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BizthbgL7U
Cancer does not negotiate.
I’m sharing this not to frighten anyone who is newly diagnosed, but to be honest about what happens emotionally when you’re told something will change you permanently. The long-term side effects of radiotherapy were explained to me in a way that sounded minimal. In reality, they were anything but. I cope with serious situations by knowing facts. I need clarity so I can prepare myself mentally and physically. Some people prefer less detail, and I understand that. But for me, the lack of full clarity makes the entire experience more frightening. Patients deserve honest, comprehensive information — not softened summaries that make the first conversation easier but leave you unprepared for the lived reality.
Because the truth is this: treatment can be horrendous, and it can also be necessary. It saves lives. Both things can be true at the same time.
What I didn’t understand — what I wish I’d understood earlier — is that for many head and neck cancer patients, treatment doesn’t simply end when the sessions end. The effects can become long-term realities. I have undergone more than 20 procedures to manage complications with swallowing. I have been hospitalised several times. I spent months with a nasogastric feeding tube, and after developing aspiration pneumonia I required a gastrostomy tube. I now live on a moist and liquid diet, and my weight has dropped significantly.
And then there is the daily, quieter impact. My voice, once my profession, is now a breathy whisper. I can speak, but projecting is difficult. Holding a conversation is tiring. In group settings I often cannot be heard. The sociable, outgoing person I have always been is still here — but joining in, hoping to be heard, can be exhausting. That exhaustion is physical, yes, but it’s also emotional. It’s the ongoing adjustment to a version of yourself you didn’t choose.
One of the things that helped me most was finding an online patient support group. In that space, I could ask questions and talk openly about symptoms with people who truly understood. Their support helped me enormously during the hardest days. In time, I found myself offering the same reassurance to new members — because I knew exactly how they were feeling. I had once stood where they stood, trying to work out how to hold two truths at once: fear of treatment, and fear of what happens without it.
I once made my living through my voice. Today my voice is quieter.
But if sharing the emotional truth of that moment — the moment I was told my voice could be permanently damaged — helps even one person feel more informed, more prepared, or less isolated, then my voice still has purpose.
I hope my journey has helped you recognise the signs of throat cancer — and given you the confidence to speak up. It’s your body, and you know when something isn’t right.
That’s why I’m proud to support the Throat Cancer Foundation’s Know the Signs campaign. It’s about two things that change outcomes: helping more people avoid throat cancer where possible, and making sure those who do develop it are diagnosed earlier, when treatment is often less invasive and recovery can be kinder.
Please support the campaign if you can — it’s how we help others avoid this brutal disease and the life-changing side effects it can leave behind.
Find out more and support here:
https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/throatcancerfoundation
Thank you,
Tracey White
