From incurable to cancer-free: My Dad’s incredible story of survival

The discovery occurred during an operation to remove an infection after countless surgeries to treat very-nearly fatal oral cancer.

At the age of 84, my Dad – grandson of a 19th-century market gardener – discovered he had his own little veggie patch inside his radiotherapy-ravaged mouth.

A mini thatch of bean sprouts had wriggled its way into the chewed-up gums of his right cheek. It was discovered during an operation to remove an infection that had festered in the awful aftermath of countless surgeries to treat his very-nearly fatal oral cancer.

His plastic surgeon, Dr Yugesh Caplash, described extracting them as “like chasing snakes”.

“We’ve seen a few things happening but not like that,” Dr Caplash says.

For my Dad – widower, retired hardware wholesaler, hospital director, Order of Australia medallist Tony Uren – the bean-sprout discovery was an “apt problem for the grandson of a market gardener”.

Tony Uren in hospital in the RAH after his cancer surgery. Supplied

“I couldn’t believe it when Yugesh told me it was bean sprouts,” he says.

“After all I’d been through, it felt like I was going from the sublime to the ridiculous. And it’s sure attracted a lot of interest from my family and friends.”

The bean sprouts were the latest act in a Herculean script of survival for Dad. It has seen him triumph over virtually unbeatable odds. Defy grim medical expectations and amaze his delighted doctors. Go from incurable to cancer-free. And become surely one of only a very few people to refuse point-blank to enter palliative care and be alive five years later to tell that tale.

Dad’s mouth cancer made its ugly arrival in 2018, just a year after losing his wife, Eunice, my Mum, who inherited the BRCA1 gene from her own mother. Already a breast cancer survivor of 25 years, she had been cruelled with her third primary cancer, which started in her stomach and made its deadly way into her oesophagus.

For Dad, cancer started with a strange appearance on his gums that wouldn’t go away. For 13 years, it was a minor problem that mystified his dentists and doctors. Countless tests in Australia and overseas all came back benign and the growth seemed stable. But all of a sudden, at the end of 2018, it erupted into an exploding mass that began to take out his teeth one by one.

At the beginning of 2019, the inevitable bleak diagnosis was confirmed – it was a cancerous tumour that was eating away at his jaw and, unknown to Dad or his doctors, penetrating his jaw bone.

Over a nightmarish week at the end of February, Dad was subjected to more than 40 hours of surgery as Dr Caplesh removed the tumour and used skin and bone grafts from Dad’s leg to reconstruct the lower right side of his face. The medical plan was plagued by difficulties in getting blood vessels to kick into action and keep the tissue healthy. Eventually, Dad was sent home with a new face. After a scheduled short course of preventive radiotherapy, he was expected to carry on with a full and happy life.

But that’s when Dad was thrown a devastating, heart-stopping curve ball. A softball-sized tumour erupted out of his cheek. His cancer had returned, consuming Dad’s mouth with a viciously voracious tumour in just a few weeks. Things were not going to script.

Tony Uren's facial tumour grew to the size of a softball in just two weeks. Picture: Supplied

“That was a surprise, it was a very rapid recurrence,” says Royal Adelaide Hospital radiation oncology consultant Associate Professor Peter Gorayski, who came into Dad’s life like a white knight.

I first met Professor Gorayski in a sunlit Royal Adelaide Hospital room in the middle of 2019. He was gently preparing my family for the worst – possibly a few weeks or a month left with Dad – and recommended two courses of action: no treatment and palliative care or a course of extremely high-dose palliative radiation oncology designed to slow Dad’s buccal cancer and extend his life.

“The conversation we had at the RAH with family was about the reality of what was happening for Dad, the poor outlook, the poor prognosis and what he wanted to do about it,” says Professor Gorayski.

“He ultimately elected to take on the treatment. He wanted something done to give him a shot at protecting his quality of life and buying some time.”

The treatment was intense. The usual breaks between blasts were shortened to maximise Dad’s chances. He endured excruciating mouth ulcers and skin burns but kept his focus on the end game.

And three months later, there was no sign of cancer on his medical scan.

“What happened was he had an amazing response evidenced by the fact that he’s still around,” says Professor Gorayski.

“He was deemed incurable because he had rapid, florid, widespread recurrence weeks after his third surgery. I have seen it grow that quickly before but the patients generally have poor outcomes.

“Tony is a success story, he’s one of the lucky ones. It was his courage and bravery and the love of his family that was central to this. The magic.”

Oncologist Peter Gorayski and his patient, Tony Uren, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Picture: Dean Martin

Dr Yugesh Caplash, a plastic surgeon at Advance Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery. Picture: Supplied

Five years later, it’s not been an easy journey for Dad.

At one point, he was in such terminal pain and struggling even on his pain medications that his palliative nurse booked him into Mary Potter Hospice, expecting him to be at his end of days. But on the morning he was supposed to transfer from his Paradise home, a defiant Dad refused point blank, instead ripping off his fentanyl patch and starting another remarkable recovery.

Since then, Dad has had three more surgeries to address an ongoing infection in his cheek. Dr Caplesh embedded part of his pectoral muscle into his cheek, giving him the unique ability of truly “pumping” his cheek when he clenches his fist.

“That’s proved to be quite a source of amusement for my grandkids,” Dad says. “But not having my muscle in my cheek instead of my chest hasn’t been much good for my golf swing.”

He’s now preparing for another surgery – just after his 85th birthday in January – to correct an ongoing problem with that cheek infection. But still he defies his doctors’ expectations.

“He’s doing so well. He’s surprised us so we just carry on looking after him,” says Dr Caplash.

“I must say, he has always had a positive outlook, that’s probably a good thing. That’s what we tell patients, most of the time, a good positive outlook is helpful.”

These days, Dad has to drink his fine red wines, gin and tonics and long blacks through a straw as he struggles to create suction through his refashioned mouth.

But the fit, healthy, Victor Harbor-based octogenarian is sapping the marrow out of life, zipping around on his e-bike, playing “very ordinary” golf with friends and family and planning his next overseas holiday to Vietnam.

“My life was certainly in the hands of my surgeon and radiologist and I will ever be grateful for their amazing skills, abilities and caring nature. We have become good friends over the years,” Dad says.

“I’d like to think that my story gives hope to people when that hope seems remote.

“Apart from a few issues with eating and drinking, I feel in excellent health and am enjoying a good quality of life. But I have developed a distaste for bean sprouts and intend never to have them again.”