1
Anyway, tonight I went to listen to a guest speaker, named Gruen von Behrens. This was the most incredibly moving speech I have ever heard in my life and I doubt that anything in the future could compete with it.2
3
___________________ 4
5
Gruen von Behrens is an oral cancer survivor. When he was 13, he began dip tobacco. Putting one dip of smokeless tobacco in your mouth is equivalent to smoking 5 cigarettes. His addiction cost him about a pack a day of dip and problems that would last a lifetime. He was a star baseball player in his school, up through his sophomore year, before being diagnosed with cancer. He had 27 home-runs alone in his sophomore season of baseball and he played third baseman; he was offered to play collegiate baseball at any and every division I school in America. He was a hot shot in high school, every kid looked up to him and wanted to know and be just like Gruen. When he was about 17 years old, he went in to a dentist's office to get his wisdom teeth removed. He knew that he was sick long before then, but was too scared to tell and hurt his mother, who happened to also be a nurse. One glance into Gruen's mouth indicated to the dentist that Gruen had a serious illness. Gruen was later diagnosed with a severely advanced stage of oral cancer.
6
7
Gruen's first surgery lasted 13 hours. The doctors warned Gruen and his family that only 1 in 5 oral cancer patients would survive the surgery he was about to undergo. In the initial surgery, Gruen's tongue was cut in half, removing all taste buds and feeling on his tongue. His nerves all throughout his neck and lower jaw are completely severed and he doesn't have any feeling there. The surgeons had to fix his destroyed lymph nodes in order to prevent the cancer from spreading throughout the rest of his body. After his first surgery, Gruen stayed in the hospital for about a month, starving because it was too painful to eat anything. He couldn't chew, and had tubes going from his nose and mouth down through his stomach. One bit of food sent a burning, stinging, hot sensation down his digestive tract because of the extreme pain. Because it was so difficult to eat, Gruen went from a built 190 pound guy to 130 pounds in less than 30 days. 8
9
Gruen had 34 surgeries so far. At least one of them lasted 20 hours. In a couple months he is scheduled for another, in his attempts to look more normal. He does not have a lower jaw or lower teeth at all. Each of his surgeries costs, on average, about 3 million dollars. In his various surgeries, attempts have been made to fix nerves and improve sensation/feeling in his neck and mouth. Between his cheeks and about where a male's adam apple is located--- are completely devoid of feeling. He can put his hand there and not know if he's really touching his neck. 10
11
His surgeries have attempted to use other parts of his body to support and restructure his face. For instance, one surgery entailed breaking his fibula multiple times and taking parts of it to put into his lower jaw, because it was missing. Likewise, skin from his thigh was used to cover the basic anatomy that he surgeons had to build from scratch. His pectoral muscle was taken to recreate his mouth and throat. Gruen described the pain in these various body parts as taking your hand and putting it at the top of a lit candle; burning and burning and becoming so pained, but you can't do anything about it. It was a constant pain in all these parts of his body for months and years that he couldn't get rid of. Because of the cost and danger of his surgeries, Gruen pays 987 dollars per month for Health care. 12
13
Gruen stressed that it was his radical, regretful decision to choose to use snuff in the first place that put him in his shoes today. He went to college without playing baseball, as all coaches turned him down after they heard his health issues. People stared at him and talked behind his back and even made fun of him without attempting to pretend Gruen didn't hear. Just because of a decision he made when he was 13 years old; because of a decision he made based on the idea that smokeless tobacco couldn't be nearly as harmful as chewing tobacco or as addicting as nicotine in cigarettes; because of a decision he made when his uncle and grandfather used smokeless tobacco too, not suffering any severe side effects the way Gruen eventually did.14
15
Gruen is not even 35 years old and he does not have a lower jaw because of this cancer. He has learned to look in the mirror every day to not be discouraged any longer. His main goal is to prevent others from making the same mistake that he did. He has embraced his mistakes and learned from them, himself. He learned that what counts is on the inside of a person, in their heart, not in their looks. Gruen promised that there is always somebody in this world who is worse off than you, so don't pity yourself for little problems in life. People take too much for granted; the little things. Walking, eating, etc. Gruen summarized that the only person you have to impress is yourself. Because at the end of the day, you have to look into the mirror and react to what you see. 16
17
Gruen announced that the tobacco companies contribute money towards Bubblegum and Candy Cigarette production factories to encourage these companies to continue getting kids addicted to things at an early age; this sly move on the tobacco companies' has made it seem "cool" at young ages to chew on candy cigarettes and to become addicted to needing to chew something in one's mouth. I never thought about that. But seriously, the tobacco companies are planning to get us addicted to their products before we are even born.
18
19
In the 45 minute speech Gruen gave, about 36 people died somewhere in the U.S. from tobacco related issues. 20
21
22
23
____________________24
25
The way Gruen told his story about paining his mother, his only parent, and his friends and destroying his chances at a full baseball scholarship,26
27
was INCREDIBLY moving; I had tears in my eyes as I listened to his deformed voice and stared at his deformed face. 28
29
If you ever have the chance to listen to one of his speeches, do it!30
31
32
33
34
35
. 36
37
38
Adding your comment:
