By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
“When I was young, growing up, everyone smoked. My dad smoked. It was the cool thing to do. Now it’s not cool any more,” said Richard Wenskoski.
Wenskoski smoked cigarettes for 45 years. In 2007, he had trouble swallowing and breathing. A cancerous tumor was discovered in his voice box. Doctors told him it was because of smoking. Surgeons performed a laryngectomy.
“They remove the voice box and in doing so they need to then pull up the wind pipe or trachea forward to create a permanent trachea stoma or hole in your neck and that’s where the patient is breathing from for the rest of their lives. So they’re no longer breathing from their nose and mouth and they have to relearn how to voice again because they have no vocal cords to voice,” said Patti Stuart Shanes.
JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute’s speech and language pathologist Shanes teaches patients like Wenskoski how to regain their speech and communication skills.
“Really what it’s about, it’s trying to get them to become independent communicators, functional communicators without the need for paper and pen,” Shanes said.
There are a number of different communication options available. Wenskoski uses an implantable voice prosthesis.
“I had to learn all over again how to talk, how to breath,” Wenskoski said.
“It’s an implantable prosthesis that goes between the trachea and the esophagus and air is shunted from your lungs through the prosthesis into your esophagus and then there’s a muscle in your esophagus that vibrates and it creates voice,” Shanes said.
Wenskoski needs to operate this device with his hands.
“If I don’t put the thumb there I can’t talk,” Wenskoski said.
The New Jersey Department of Health indicates 349 residents were diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 2013. Shanes says the majority of her patients were smokers.
“Estimates are that there are 40 million Americans that smoke cigarettes on a regular basis. Tobacco use causes more preventable death than any other thing that’s out there,” said American Cancer Society Senior Market Manager Jason Plaia.
For nearly 15 years, Shanes has visited schools in Middlesex County. Every November she aims to educate students about the risks of tobacco use. For the past four years, Wenskoski has joined her. He says he talks to the kids about losing his voice to cigarettes.
“I not only had this, I had triple bypass surgery because of smoking and now I’m being treated this year for COPD,” he said.
But this grandfather won’t let any of that stop him from telling kids to never smoke.