Poison drummer Rikki Rockett has revealed that during his battle with throat cancer, he recorded messages for his young children in case doctors had to remove his tongue. The 65-year-old rocker, born Richard Allan Ream, told Fox News Digital that after chemotherapy and radiation failed to stop the disease, the next step would have been surgery to cut out his tongue.
«I was recording pieces of information for my kids so they could watch it, because the next step was to cut my tongue out if they had to,» Rockett said. «And I wanted them to know what I sounded like and my advice to them growing up, and I wanted them to hear it from me. I wanted them to understand what I was, what I thought I was or would become.»
Rockett's weight dropped to 161 pounds during treatment, and he said the possibility of losing his tongue left him fearing he might not survive much longer. «I would've most likely had a feeding tube,» he said. «I don't think I would've lived much longer. It would've added another year or two. Some people do make it. Some people get all of that done and live for a long time. But I think a lot of times, with the way it was going with me, I don't think I would've survived, quite honestly.»
Now free of cancer for a decade, Rockett chronicles his rise to stardom during the 1980s and his grueling health battle in a new memoir, «Ghost Notes: My Life in Poison.» According to the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance, he was diagnosed in 2015 with HPV-related throat cancer affecting the base of his tongue. In his memoir, Rockett writes that he had experienced a sore throat and a swollen lymph node for more than a month, and that it hurt every time he swallowed.
After the diagnosis, he received radiation and chemotherapy. «Before long, I couldn't eat solid food anymore,» he wrote. «My weight dropped dramatically because all I could manage was soup, shakes and water. Eventually, I couldn't eat or drink anything at all.» He also described a moment when his son watched him struggle to eat a spoonful of soup. «I've got throat cancer. At its worst, I struggle to swallow even a gulp of water,» he wrote. «This morning, my son had to watch tears running down my cheeks as I tried to eat a spoonful of soup. He looked terrified.»
Rockett told Fox News Digital that he eventually «wound up in stage 4.» For three months, he received radiation five days a week along with weekly chemotherapy, but the treatment failed. Doctors then discussed removing his tongue, and Rockett wrote in his memoir that he believed he had only a «40 or 50 percent chance of living.»
Rather than give up, Rockett enrolled in an experimental drug combination at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. «Even with all the treatment, it still didn't work,» he recalled. «So then I got on an experimental drug combination at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and it worked incredibly well. It's one of those things where, if it works, it's amazing. If it doesn't, you kind of go, 'Wow, maybe I wasted my time.' So I had to roll the dice. And I did. And when I rolled it, thankfully, it came out in my favor.»
According to UC San Diego Health, Rockett participated in a clinical trial involving a combination of two drugs: pembrolizumab, known as Keytruda, and epacadostat. He was declared free of throat cancer in July 2016. The treatment took a toll, and at one point his tongue swelled so much that he feared he might choke. But a scan soon offered hope. «The crazy thing was that my first PET scan showed that 90 percent of the cancer was already gone,» Rockett wrote. «And by the second PET scan, it was all gone. It was as if the angels had come down and blessed me. I mean, it was unbelievable.»
His health challenges were not over. About eight months into the process, doctors grew concerned about high white blood cell counts, and Rockett was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer associated with an acquired genetic abnormality known as the Philadelphia chromosome. «Of course, it absolutely freaked me out,» he wrote. «I mean, I just went through one cancer, and now I was facing another one.»
His hematologist, however, reassured him. «She told me, 'You picked the best leukemia you could. It's very treatable, and sometimes curable,'» Rockett wrote. He credited the doctor with helping him through the long road ahead.