Oral Cancer News

Source: Lifestyles
Author: Nicole Printz

Just like the trucks on every corner in Abilene, rings on back jean pockets are a common sight.

Gruen Von Behrens, who visited Abilene High School on Wednesday, knows all about smokeless tobacco. He began with snuff at 13 years old.

He asked the packed high school auditorium if the students knew someone who smoked cigarettes. A sea of hands rose at the question, with almost the same number rising for his next question – did they know someone who used smokeless tobacco?
“I think about half our school smokes or uses smokeless tobacco,” Dynae Whiteley, a junior, said. “I mean, not to get anyone in trouble or anything.”

“I have friends and relatives that use tobacco,” said senior Matt Bowers. “I think smokeless tobacco is safer because the use of cigarettes affects more people through second-hand smoke. Smokeless tobacco only affects that person.”

Collin Sexton, a sophomore, also thought smokeless tobacco would be safer than smoking.

Dynae Whiteley and Paige Piper, both juniors, thought all tobacco was “equally bad.”
According to the Communities That Care 2009 survey, 23.1 percent of Dickinson County students sixth through 12th grade have used smokeless tobacco, and 27.4 percent had smoked a cigarette. Almost half of all seniors in Dickinson County had smoked a cigarette at least once. This statistics are almost double the state average.
Von Behrens, one of the eight members of the National Spit Tobacco Education Program’s speakers bureau, continued his life story. He said “not to toot my own horn, but I was hot,” a popular kid in school who played baseball. His future was bright. Fellow students looked up to him, and he “never had trouble finding a date.”

Blond with sparkling blue eyes, five foot ten inches tall and 190 pounds, the high school junior had it all. He had continued to use smokeless tobacco.

“I grew up in a rural area,” Von Behrens explained. He said his relatives, friends and older people in the community all used smokeless tobacco.

“Tobacco is a highly addictive drug,”
Von?Behrens said. “Nicotine is more addictive than crack and heroin combined.”

He found a white spot on his tongue when he was 16. He had begun drooling, having difficulty speaking and eating. It was cancer. Within six months the squamous cell carcinoma split his tongue.

“I didn’t want to tell my mother I was sick because of a choice I made to put this crap in my mouth,” Von Behrens said. His mother, a surgical nurse, made a dental appointment for him. Von Behrens had told his mother that his wisdom teeth were coming in to avoid more questions about his mouth.

“Right before he [the dentist] slapped that mask on my mouth to remove my wisdom teeth, I grabbed his hand and said ‘Wait,’” Von Behrens said. He told the doctor he had cancer, and one look in his mouth confirmed his self-diagnosis.

“Not only did I hurt myself, but I devastated that woman. I listen to people say that smokeless tobacco only hurts yourself, but I saw the pain on my mom’s face,” Von Behrens said. He had an 80 percent chance of dying within the first five years after the diagnosis.

One week after the dentist appointment, Von Behrens had surgery. During the 13 hour procedure, doctors cut off half his tongue, split the skin of his throat from ear to ear and peeled it back to search for other cancerous areas. He began radiation, which damaged the healthy skin cells while saving his life.

“My skin was so tender that if I scratched it, my skin would peel off. My mouth was blistered. It hurt to drink water,” Von Behrens said. “At the age of 19, I had to have all my teeth pulled because my gums had been damaged during the radiation.”

He had surgery to remove his mandible, and doctors reconstructed a replacement jawbone from his fibula. He pulled up his jeans to show a long scar on his left calf. He explained that doctors also removed a large section of skin from his right thigh to put on his lower face. To help his thigh heal, doctors removed sections of skin from his legs to graft on his thigh.

“Imagine holding your hand above a candle, and the flame makes your skin hot, but you can’t pull your hand away. Now your skin is blistering, but you still can’t pull your hand away. The flame is burning a hole in your hand, but you can’t pull your hand away,” Von Behrens said. “That is what my legs felt like after those surgeries.”

“Doctors are still trying to put my face back together because of what I did – using spit tobacco when I was your age,” Von Behren said. “I don’t like what I’ve been through. I hate the way my face looks and the way my voice sounds. I cringe at the thought of another surgery. I don’t feel sorry for myself – I thank God that I’m alive.”
After 34 surgeries, his face is still distorted. He will be going into surgery once more to try to reconstruct the lower part of his face.

“They’re going to insert skin expanders and put in implants.?They say that when they’re done I’ll look like before,”  Von?Behrens explained. “These surgeries have cost three million dollars – why can’t they make me look hot? Like Brad Pitt or something,” he said jokingly.

“I didn’t come here today to tell you that you’re a bad person if you use, or if your parents do,” Von Behrens said. “I would be a hypocrite if I said that. I just want to give you an opportunity to make a better choice, because I know that if someone who looked like this had come to my school when I was your age, I would have never touched the stuff.”

“I lost my face because I had an addiction,” he said solemnly.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nicotine is a psychoactive drug that is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or alcohol.
Smokeless tobacco had been considered safer than cigarette smoking.
“Smokeless tobacco use is 98 percent safer than cigarette smoking,” a 1995 report by Dr. Brad Rodu and Dr. Phillip Cole states.

However, a 2003 testimony by Richard Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., and F.A.C.S., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service states:
“I cannot conclude that the use of any tobacco product is a safer alternative to smoking. Smokeless tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco does cause cancer. The National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Health continues to classify smokeless tobacco as a known human carcinogen.”
According to the National Cancer Institute, chewing tobacco and snuff contain 28 carcinogens.

“All tobacco, including smokeless tobacco, contains nicotine, which is addictive. The amount of nicotine absorbed from smokeless tobacco is three to four times the amount delivered by a cigarette. Nicotine is absorbed more slowly from smokeless tobacco than cigarettes…[but] stays in the bloodstream for a longer time.”

Tobacco also contains formaldehyde, arsenic and nickel, according to the National Cancer Institute.

“In large doses, nicotine is a poison and can kill by stopping a person’s breathing muscles,” the American Cancer Society’s website states.

A brochure with tips for quitting is available at www.nidcr.nih.-gov/oralhealth/topics/spittobacco/spittobaccoaguideforquitting.htm.

The Kansas Quitline  for young adults is available by calling 1-866-526-7867 or visiting www.kstask.org/quitline. Adults can call 1-800-784-8669.

Von Behren used smokeless tobacco for four years. He was  only using one-half to three-fourths a can per day. Doctors say that even if he had gone to the hospital after noticing the white spot, he would probably have had the same surgeries.

“That white spot, that so many smokeless tobacco users have, is 60 percent more likely to turn into cancer,” Von Behrens said.

The high school students were noticeably moved by Von Behrens’ speech.

“Oh yeah, I think he’s changed how everyone thinks about smokeless tobacco,” Collin Sexton said.

“It was a big eye opener,”?Matt Bowers added.

“We didn’t know how bad the surgeries were,” Dynae Whiteley said.

“Just overall how terrible it was,” Paige Piper said in agreement.

“They [tobacco companies] try to make cigarettes and tobacco look cool,” Von Behren said.

“How cool does this look?” he asked, pointing at his face.