Diane Von Furstenberg's Tongue Cancer Fight
- Belgian fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg, who survived tongue cancer, is celebrating her husband of 50 years, Barry Diller, for his unwavering love and support after he came out as gay earlier this year.
- Furstenberg beat tongue cancer, after initially discovering something was wrong after a lunch with fellow designer Ralph Lauren.
- Tongue cancer doesn’t always show signs, but symptoms can include: a lump on the side of the tongue that touches the teeth, pain, a sense of fullness in the throat, difficulty swallowing, the feeling of a lump in the neck or throat, voice changes and ear pain.
- Tongue cancer is more commonly found in people older than 40. In addition, tongue cancer is twice as common in men, and smokers are five times more likely to develop tongue cancer than nonsmokers.
The 78-year-old fashionista and mom of two, who rose to fame with her revolutionary 1974 wrap dress, took to social media this week to share a sweet throwback photo of her and billionaire businessman husband, who she’s been married to since 2001.
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Fans praised the loving duo for sharing their “beautiful love story” and wished them an happy anniversary, a milestone event which comes just months after Diller revealed he was gay.
Diller opened up in The Intelligencer earlier this year, offering much insight into their relationship, saying, “While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman, and she didn’t come into my life until I was 33 years old. There are many complex aspects of my relationship with Diane von Furstenberg: romantic love and deep respect, companionship and world adventuring, then disappointment and separation, and finally marriage.
“We met in 1974, separated in 1981, reunited in 1991, married in 2001, and have spent 50 years intertwined with each other in a unique and complete love.”
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He continued, “I have never questioned my sexuality’s basic authority over my life (I was only afraid of the reaction of others). And when my romance with Diane began, I never questioned that its biological imperative was as strong in its heterosexuality as its opposite had been. When it happened, my initial response was “Who knew?”
“I’m well aware that this part of my life has caused confusion and lots of speculation. A relationship that began with indifference, then exploded into a romance as natural to us as breathing, surprised us and everyone else. It really is the miracle of my life.”
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Diane Von Furstenberg’s Journey With Tongue Cancer
Von Furstenberg recounted the unusual story of discovering she had tongue cancer following a lunch with designer Ralph Lauren.
During an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in 2009,” DVF said, “It’s the most ridiculous thing. So I didn’t really know Ralph very well. And we ordered one course because neither of us really wanted to do this lunch.”
Referring to how Lauren began confiding in her about a benign (non-cancerous) brain tumor he had experienced, she recalled, “And I said, ‘How did you find out about it?’ And he said, ‘It’s funny. I had a noise in my ear, and I went to the doctor, and there was nothing in my ear, but that’s when they found it.’”
At that moment, DVF noticed a ringing in her own ear and wondered if she was imagining it.
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She continued, “He tells me about that and I have a noise in my ear? So I pay no attention. The next day, I still have a noise in my ear, so I immediately went to the doctor, who found nothing wrong with my ear. But he said, ‘You know you have a swollen gland here.'”
Her doctor performed a biopsy, determined it was just a cyst, and saw no immediate need for removal. However, DVF urged her doctor to get it out.
“And when they took it out, they cut it, they found little bad cells in it. I did eight weeks of radiation. But I was lucky; that was 15 years ago,” she said.
Tongue Cancer: A Type of Head & Neck Cancer
According to Cedars-Sinai, several types of cancer develop in the tongue, with the most common being squamous cell carcinoma.
The two types of tongue cancer are:
- Cancer of the oral tongue, which consists of the front two-thirds of the tongue that you can stick out
- Cancer of the base of the tongue, the area which is the back one-third of the tongue that extends down the throat
Although some people may be diagnosed with tongue cancer and have no risk factors, Cedars-Sinai says this type of cancer is most commonly found in adults 40 years old and up. Men are also twice as likely to be diagnosed with tongue cancer.
Other risk factors include:
- Smoking [smokers are 5x more likely to develop tongue cancer than nonsmokers]
- Drinking alcohol
- Human papillomavirus (HPV)
African-American men also have a greater risk than caucasians.
Tongue cancer may be hard to spot in its early stages, however it’s important to be aware of the symptoms, as catching the disease earlier will lead to an easier treatment path.
Symptoms might include:
- An unusual lump on the side of the tongue
- An ulcer-like lump, of a grayish-pink to red color
- A lump that bleeds easily when touched
- Trouble swallowing
- Voice changes
- Pain in the ear
- Pain in the throat
- Feeling of fullness in the throat
HPV and Cancer Risk: The Basics
Throat cancer is usually diagnosed through X-rays, CT scans, and PET scans. A diagnosis also often requires a biopsy.
For tongue cancer treatment, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are usually done.
It’s much more common to know someone who has a head or neck cancer, like tongue cancer, now-a-days than it was several decades ago. And that’s because of its strong connection to the human papillomavirus, also known as HPV, which is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States.
“From the 1980s to the 2010s, the rate of HPV-related head and neck cancers has gone up by 300 percent,” Dr. Ted Teknos, a head and neck cancer specialist at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio, told SurvivorNet during a previous interview.
More On Head and Neck Cancers
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The vast majority of people in the United States — both men and women — will eventually get infected with HPV, according to Dr. Allen Ho, a head and neck surgeon at Cedars-Sinai.
“The important thing to know about HPV is that there are many different strains, and only a couple of them tend to be more cancer-inducing,” he told SurvivorNet.
“Probably less than 1% of the population who get infected happen to have the cancer-causing virus that somehow their immune system fails to clear, and over 15 to 20 years it develops from a viral infection into a tumor, and a cancer.”
It’s unclear whether HPV alone is enough to trigger the changes in your cells that lead to head and neck cancers, or whether this happens in combination with other risk factors like smoking.
How To Help A Partner Diagnosed With Cancer
After a cancer diagnosis, it’s natural for spouses to grapple with a whirlwind of emotions — anger, grief, anxiety, and beyond. The journey ahead can feel overwhelming, but it’s important to remember that a cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. There are strategies to navigate uncertainty, find support, and face challenges with resilience.
Some popular approaches, backed by research and many anecdotal accounts, include:
- Talking to a therapist to share feelings you’re going through
- Having candid conversations with your loved one about the diagnosis
- Researching the disease together to learn about available treatment options
- Joining a support group or connecting with others who have gone through, or are going through, the same experience
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
