Jayh57′s Weblog

For much of the year, Tork–who plays guitar and piano in addition to handling lead vocals–tours with Shoe Suede Blues bandmates Arnold Jacks (bass/vocals), Derek Lord (drums) and Joe Boyle (guitar/vocals).

You might expect a measure of jaded reserve from a guy who’s part of an enduring pop culture phenomenon. Not so with Peter Tork. The 67-year-old former Monkee co-starred in one of the most influential series in television history, belonged to one of the most successful Top 40 bands of the Sixties, and jammed in his living room with the likes of George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix. But ask Tork about the proton therapy he received this summer for his head and neck cancer, and you’re hit with a flood of unfettered, wide-eyed wonder.

“You should see the machine they developed–Mother of God, this thing is astounding!” he says, referring to the cyclotron at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center. “I’m a little bit of a science freak. And when they tell me that because protons will stop where you tell them to–and what’s more, that they go in at a lower power than they get to be by the time they’re full blast–then you [understand] that it’s possible under some circumstances to hit the healthy tissue with no more than 30 percent of what you’re hitting the tumor with. And I’m going, ‘Hey, hoo-RAY! Let me have some of that, if I’ve gotta have radiation at all.’”

Tork was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) at the beginning of this year (see “ACC Facts and Figures” sidebar). His symptoms were so subtle that they nearly went unnoticed: an odd sensation when swallowing, a subtle change in his voice that an ex-girlfriend called to his attention. His form of ACC proved extremely rare, manifesting not in its most common haunts–the salivary glands or the tear ducts–but on his tongue. After Jatin Shah, MD, the chief of head and neck surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, removed the lower portion of his tongue in March, Tork received nearly two months of proton therapy from Norbert Liebsch, MD, PhD, a radiation oncologist at Mass General. Between treatments, the erudite musician–who gamely played the “dumb” Monkee four decades ago–even attended a lecture on proton therapy. (“The first cyclotron was about the size of a bagel,” he enthuses. “Did you know that?”)

Tork, who now tours and records with his band Shoe Suede Blues, prides himself on having not missed a single scheduled performance date during treatment. He played his old high school on May 29, only two months after a surgical team split his jaw in half to extract his cancer. And less than eight weeks after completing his regimen of radiation, he again took to the stage. Having weathered an initial–and, he says, unfounded–fear of recurrence, he’s free of any major side effects, aside from the recent impairment of his falsetto (a condition he admits could be the result of a cold). “[After] surgery, they didn’t expect me to speak for four or five days; I was speaking on the second day,” he says. “They didn’t expect me to be up and walking for three or four days; I was walking on the second [or] third day. They prescribed a week’s stay; I was in there for six days. [It was] like that, you know? The surgery hasn’t affected me. The radiation, which lays people low, hasn’t bothered me. Odds and ends–the sunburn on your neck–you can’t avoid. And it slowed my ability to speak . but I got through the performance dates fine. I’m a very lucky guy. I soared through this stuff relative to some people.”

hear also an interview with Peter:

http://imaging-radiation-oncology.advanceweb.com/Article/Monkee-See-Protons-Do.aspx