What It Feels Like to Survive Tongue Cancer

There was something going on in my mouth, a thing on the side of my tongue. During a routine teeth cleaning in early 2024, the dentist didn’t notice. I pointed it out to another doctor twice, and he was like, “Yeah, you’re fine.” My primary care doctor called it a just a growth or plaque. But flavors were muted. I couldn’t taste the nuances of chocolate, the product that my wife, Elizabeth, and I make for a living.

I’d spent years honing my taste buds working in fine dining, including two years as a sous chef at the Michelin-starred Quince Restaurant in San Francisco. However, I grew tired of the culture, which was toxic and terrible, and worked different corporate jobs for a few years before settling into tech work in Michigan. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Elizabeth, a professional pastry chef, became deeply interested in chocolate and decided to found a craft bean-to-bar company: Harvest Chocolate.

Elizabeth had a vision for chocolate that connects people to where cocoa is grown, paired with seasonal local produce. So, I quit my job and joined her full-time near the end of 2023. We did everything ourselves: sourcing, making, and selling the product. But as I began to lose my sense of taste and noticed the growth on my tongue, things got challenging. I bounced around different doctors until I finally decided, This isn’t right.

The author and his wife Elizabeth in their chocolate shop.

Medical professionals are very fact based. Sometimes, you have to stand up for yourself. So, I made another appointment with my dentist and pushed for a definitive test to find out what was wrong. She referred me to an oral surgeon for a biopsy.

Finally, in May 2024, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. It wasn’t just on my tongue, either—it spread to my lymph nodes.

After a ton of tests, I was scheduled for surgery that coming July. Surgeons removed the growth on my tongue, along with lymph nodes in my neck. Afterwards, it was difficult to eat. I couldn’t taste for a month. And just as flavors started to come back, I began radiation in the middle of August, which continued until early October.

After I finished treatment, water tasted mineral-y, almost salty. I had to puree all my food. When I could finally eat solids again, chocolate tasted so bitter, tannic, and gross that if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t have known what it was. The doctors said it would take six months for my sense of taste to return. It was really difficult. I didn’t know what I was going to wake up to.

The author undergoing cancer treatment.

But I still had to make chocolate to support our company. So, even though it was hard to recognize specific ingredients, I tried to guess what something was going to taste like just from aroma and experience. For example, we made a cardamom cappuccino white chocolate bar with pieces of dark chocolate in it. By just looking, I could tell it was heavy on the cardamom. I knew what it would taste like in my head. That was a wild thing that I hadn’t ever really thought of: Taste is only partially your tongue—it’s also scent and memory.

I relied on friends whose taste buds were normal. They’d come and taste samples to pick up the nuances I couldn’t, which they were happy to do, because they got to eat free chocolate.

In the meantime, I worked through speech therapy, doing exercises to improve my swallowing and get my lymph nodes to drain. Then, in late November, barely a couple of months after radiation finished, I took a bite of chocolate and thought, Wow, this is really good! Did we make this?

The author drying cocoa beans.

My sense of taste came and went as we worked through the holidays. It was our busiest season yet, but I was exhausted afterwards. Radiation took its toll; I felt, and still feel, intense pain in my neck and shoulders, where treatment was administered. When I asked for assistance with the pain, doctors were quick to brush it aside. So, Elizabeth and I took some time off in January to rest, during which I reflected on everything that happened.

I realized that life is short and fragile. I now have very little patience for doing things I don’t want to be doing. (I try to avoid sitting in traffic like the plague). I think more about death, too. Of family and friends who have passed. That it can happen to anybody at any time.

I’m also frustrated by the healthcare system. I learned that you have to keep advocating for yourself and find the solution that’s right for you, or you’ll be sent on your way. At the same time, I remind myself that healthcare professionals are people, too. They have their flaws. You don’t know what’s going on in their lives.

The author and his wife outside of their chocolate shop.

If I was diagnosed earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have needed surgery. Maybe cancer wouldn’t have spread to my lymph nodes. But as of this writing, I’m cancer free. My tongue still feels weird where the growth was, but my sense of taste has fully returned. Now, when I eat our chocolate, I do it with more intention than ever before.

Thinking back to December, our busiest month, I was wracked with pain from the radiation, but I still found the energy to drive an hour and a half both ways to buy special, locally sourced ginger—just to make a bar of chocolate. I’m glad that during such a difficult time, I kept pouring myself into something I love: the business my wife and I built together.