Thursday, June 3, 2021 • The BuLLeTIn GO! MAGAZINE • PAGE 7 LOCAL LITERARY HIGHLIGHTS bendbulletin.com/goread Bend man navigates a detour in life BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin T erry Healey, of Bend, will be among the fortunate celebrating National Cancer Survivors Day this Sunday. He was just 20 when he received a cancer diagnosis that resulted in major facial disfigurement at 21, followed by some 30 reconstructive surgeries — a detour in life he could not have anticipated. Today, Healey, 56, is a successful tech sales and marketing strategy consultant. He’s also the author of “At Face Value: My Triumph Over a Disfiguring Cancer” and a motivational speaker who strives to help others rebuild their confidence after facing adversity. In high school, Healey was a handsome don’t know they have it, and they’re wreak- and popular young man, a basketball player ing havoc underneath the surface. … Where and track and cross-country runner who it typically forms is arms, legs, hips, and it was chosen homecoming prince. almost never occurs in the head or “I talk a lot about living life on neck.” easy street, getting good grades, And when sarcomas are being an athlete, being a found in the limbs, the solu- homecoming prince, and tion is often to amputate, then suddenly, everything Healey said. changed,” he said. “My doctor, once I got to The moment his life know him. He said there is began to change came at one way we could treat this, the University of Califor- and the best way, which nia-Berkeley, when he ar- would be to cut your head rived at the first bump in the off. Then we’d know we’d get road — or rather, a bump in it, but we can’t do that, and so his nose. Friends began tell- we’ll do the next best thing.” Terry Healey’s memoir, “At ing him his nostril appeared Face Value,” was first self- to be flared. published in 2001 and picked DISFIGURING SURGERY “The fact that it was push- up by a publisher in 2006. He underwent an initial ing my right nostril out, and surgery to remove any re- flaring my nostril, that was Submitted photo maining cancerous cells, kind of the signal from other which required only sutures. people — I didn’t notice it Six months later, the cancer recurred aggres- myself — but from other people saying, sively, and Healey’s cheek began to tingle. His ‘Hey, is everything all right? Your nostril’s doctor prescribed another surgery. flaring out,’” Healey said. “My doctor warned that I might lose part He detected a bump, and when it didn’t go of my nose, but his main concern was saving away on its own, Healey visited a doctor, who my life,” Healey has written about his experi- assured him it was probably a pimple. But ence. “I suppose I was too young to contem- when the “pimple” didn’t go away after three plate dying, but the notion of disfigurement weeks, his doctor suggested a biopsy. Most of the tumor was removed during the biopsy, af- was devastating. I awoke from surgery to find ter which it took five weeks to get a diagnosis. that he had removed not only half my nose but also half of my upper lip, muscle and bone “I was shaking in my boots, wondering from my right cheek, the shelf of my eye, six what the heck’s going on,” he said. “Biopsies teeth, and part of my hard palate.” take just a matter of days, normally.” “My doctor told me that they’d get me Healey learned he had a malignant maxil- back to who I was before,” Healey said. lary tumor, a fibrosarcoma, a type of cancer that can form in bones, muscle and connec- “Whether that was bad information or the wrong way to handle a patient, I think the tive tissue. fact that I had hope kept me in the game. “They’re really rare,” Healey said. “They’re … I was ignorant, right? I was young, I was only about half of 1% of cancers. … They of- ignorant, and I was invincible, so I thought, ten form in bones, and because of that, they ‘Everything’s going to be fine. They’ll get me progress. They’re very aggressive. So people right back to where I was.’” They did not. He had his first few recon- structive procedures at University of Cali- fornia-San Francisco. “My doctor said, ‘The most problematic part of this patient is his nose,’” Healey said. “That’s where he noticed the disfigurement. The problem was, I’d lost the whole founda- tion behind my nose.” Despite the surgical efforts to fix his nose, Healey’s lip began to pull up, his eye drooped and his nose pulled to the right. “All this additional disfigurement was happening right underneath our eyes,” Healey said. In hindsight, a larger game plan among specialists would have helped. Continued on next page