A new voice. A new mission.
After advanced throat cancer took his voice, Gary Robinson fought his way back — and now uses that voice to lift others facing the same surgery.
In November 2022, Gary Robinson was sitting quietly in his chair at home. “I was breathing really hard, but I wasn’t doing anything to cause it,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
He’d already been to urgent care twice, where he was prescribed antibiotics. When those didn’t work, he’d gone to his local hospital, where they thought he might have COPD. And a breathing treatment did briefly help.
But when breathing became a real struggle, he returned to the emergency room, where the doctor ordered a CAT scan of his neck — and returned with bad news. A cancer diagnosis.
Even more frightening? If he didn’t get care right away, he might not wake up tomorrow.
A helicopter flew him to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. By then, a mass had nearly closed his airway.
A surgery that changed everything
At Geisinger, David Purdy, MD, an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon, met him at his bedside. Mr. Robinson had advanced hypopharyngeal cancer and needed surgery to remove his voice box.
“They told me exactly what they were going to do,” Mr. Robinson says. First, an emergency tracheotomy would open his airway. Then, he’d undergo a 12-hour total laryngectomy.
When he woke up in the ICU, he couldn’t speak and communicated by writing everything down — passing notes to nurses and doctors who leaned in, waited and made sure they understood him. He also relied on a feeding tube for more than a month and lost 65 pounds as his body healed.
“I was an emotional wreck,” he says. It wasn’t just physical recovery. The mental battle was harder, and as he puts it, his defining moment.
Finding his voice again
“When you lose your voice, you lose your personality, you lose your identity — lose everything,” he says.
Geisinger speech-language pathologist Katie Kishbaugh helped him use a handheld device that creates vibrations so people can form words. Later, he received a tracheoesophageal voice prosthesis, or TEP, a small device that allows air to move from the lungs into the esophagus to produce speech.
“Dr. Purdy gave me my voice, and it gave me back my life,” Mr. Robinson says. “It’s been a great learning experience. I used to love to talk so much. Now I try to listen more than I talk.”
Every couple of months, he returns to Danville to have the device replaced — a small price to pay for being cancer-free.
Paying it forward
Now, when someone is facing a laryngectomy, Ms. Kishbaugh often puts them in touch with Mr. Robinson. He tells patients the truth — that it’s hard. That it changes you. That the mental battle can be tougher than the physical one.
He also tells them about the Geisinger team who stood beside him. “There’s a difference between someone being a professional and someone actually caring,” he says. “They cared. Every single one of them.”
In the clinic, he’s become a familiar face and a steady presence for others who are scared.
“His optimism and willingness to support other patients make him a light for everyone around him,” says Ms. Kishbaugh.
When Mr. Robinson talks to patients, he brings it back to this: “You gotta keep movin’. When your body says no, you gotta keep moving. Your mind is so much more powerful than people recognize.”
He pauses, adding, “Words make a difference.”
Next steps:
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Learn about throat cancer care at Geisinger
How to support someone with cancer
