Kilmer Delights Fans
- Actor Val Kilmer, 61, shared a painting of his Tombstone character Doc Holliday with fans.
- Kilmer recently battled throat cancer.
- Seeking out joy during cancer, and focusing on the positive, can make a difference.
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Kilmer’s Cancer Battle
Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and went public with his illness in 2017. Kilmer had a tracheotomy, and he also underwent chemotherapy to treat his disease.
The two main causes of throat cancer are smoking and excessive drinking, but throat cancer can also be caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Dr. Ted Teknos says in a previous interview, "When I first started training and practicing head and neck surgery, we saw this group of patients that were becoming increasingly more frequent, who were those patients who never smoked, were not drinkers, and were developing head and neck cancer. And in the beginning part of my career in the early ’90s and mid-90s, those were rare patients, but then, year by year, those numbers increased dramatically."
Related: Majority of Throat Cancer Diagnoses Are Caused by HPV Here's What You Need to Know
"What we know now, through science, is going back and looking, decade by decade, the rates of HPV-related head and neck cancer have increased exponentially," says Dr. Teknos. "If you look at the percentage of patients who developed throat cancer, really, cancer of the tonsils and the base of the tongue, in the ’80s compared to the 2010s, if you will, the rate of HPV-related head and neck cancers has gone up by 300%. So there is no myth. HPV causes throat cancer, and it's a sexually transmitted disease. And it's something that is an epidemic in the United States."
HPV and Cancer Risks
Finding Joy Through Cancer
Kilmer is a beautiful example of staying positive through the cancer journey, and focusing on the good. Avid art lover Kilmer is often sharing his work online with fans, shining a lens on the beauty of life like art.
Keeping a positive attitude through cancer has been shown to help. Dr. Zuri Murrell, a colorectal surgeon, says in an earlier interview, “My patients who thrive, even with stage 4 cancer, from the time that they, about a month after they’re diagnosed, I kind of am pretty good at seeing who is going to be OK.”
“Now doesn’t that mean I’m good at saying that the cancer won’t grow,” says Dr. Murrell. “But I’m pretty good at telling what kind of patient are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease. And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”
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