Steven’s cancer journey began long before he ever received a formal diagnosis. He grew up dealing with health issues from birth, spending more time in hospitals than any child should, and lost his mother to leukemia when he was just 24 years old — far too young to lose a parent. She was a nurse, and in the moments when Steven most needed someone to help him understand what was happening to his own body, she was sadly gone.
In 1996, at 25, Steven was living and working at Walt Disney World when he noticed a spot on his tongue that wasn’t healing. A punch biopsy confirmed dysplasia.
I was young, I was happy, and I didn’t want my health to define me, so I carried on, explained Steven. A month later — on what would have been my mother’s 53rd birthday — I underwent a larger excision. The results came back as severe squamous dysplasia/carcinoma in-situ: stage zero, pre-cancerous, but unsettling enough to rattle me. The word carcinoma was there and it scared me. I kept it to myself and pushed forward.”
Over the following years, Steven moved to Vancouver to pursue acting, monitored the condition regularly, and had additional biopsies when new spots appeared. Each time, the diagnosis was dysplasia — serious, but not yet invasive.
I convinced myself I wasn’t worried, and mostly I believed it. But in 2007, with the BC Cancer Agency flagging a concerning progression, I faced my first partial glossectomy, added Steven. Recovery was painful and isolating. It was also during that period that I learned, for the first time, that HPV16 was likely a contributing factor — a revelation that felt like both an answer and a secret I wasn’t sure I wanted to carry.
Steven returned to theatre school in New York City with a speech impediment, which was humbling and frightening for someone whose voice was his livelihood. With the help of a remarkable speech teacher and the support of his classmates, he regained normal speech within a couple of months. Life opened back up. He worked as a tour guide, booked regional theatre and Broadway national tours, and performed for thousands of people. For stretches of time, he almost forgot to be afraid.
In November 2020, in the middle of COVID lockdown in New York, a biopsy confirmed what Steven had been dreading: invasive squamous cell carcinoma, plus extensive high-grade dysplasia. He underwent another partial glossectomy at Columbia-Presbyterian, this time with a skin graft taken from his thigh.
I went to the hospital alone — it was lockdown, and honestly, by that point, as someone who has traveled a lot and had so many medical issues, I had grown accustomed to facing these things largely by myself. My surgeon was confident he had clear margins, and no further treatment was recommended, explained Steven.
The reprieve was shorter than he had hoped. In September 2022 a recurrence required yet another partial glossectomy, Recovery was faster, the graft smaller, and the result felt like a genuine victory — caught in time, no further treatment needed. But the emotional toll was accumulating. Steven found himself fighting depression, always waiting for the next recurrence, never quite able to exhale.
The most recent recurrance came in 2023, while he was performing on a Disney Cruise Ship in Europe — a role Steven had dreamed of for years. He noticed a lump on his neck and knew immediately what it meant. A fine needle biopsy confirmed metastasis to a lymph node. In November 2023, he underwent a fourth partial glossectomy alongside a neck dissection. Because the cancer had broken through the outer wall of the node, there was a possibility it had entered his bloodstream, and for the first time in his life, radiation and chemotherapy were recommended.
That winter I underwent 33 sessions of radiation and two rounds of cisplatin chemotherapy at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, one of the world’s leading cancer centers. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I was hospitalized for two weeks when my white blood cell counts dropped dangerously low, shared Steven.
Swallowing became nearly impossible, and Steven used a text-to-speech app to communicate because talking hurt too much. He finished his last radiation session on February 1, 2024. I walked past the bell in the radiation department. I was too exhausted to ring it and too hollowed out to feel celebratory — though I understood, deeply, that I had made it through something enormous.
Recovery was slow and nonlinear. Food and water tasted like nothing good for weeks. Steven was rail-thin and depleted but set a goal: a birthday party on March 1st, surrounded by friends. He made it.
By summer, Steven was back at the pool. By October he was performing in a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in New York — though he had to be honest with himself and the creative team that he wasn’t yet at full capacity: That honesty, rather than pushing through and pretending everything was fine, felt like genuine growth.
As of 2026, Steven is a survivor of oral squamous cell carcinoma spanning nearly three decades of monitoring, biopsies, and surgeries. He has had four partial glossectomies, a neck dissection, radiation, and chemotherapy. In addition, he has navigated an additional diagnosis of early-stage Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which was a major scare before improving with lifestyle changes.
What I carry forward from all of it is this: I spent too many years pretending I was fine. Now I use my voice — quite literally — to advocate for others facing oral cancer, to speak openly about HPV-related cancers, and to encourage people to push for early screening and the HPV vaccine. My story isn’t over. But for the first time, I’m telling it honestly.
