When Sean Cousins learned that he had an extremely rare cancer, he knew Texas Center for Proton Therapy was his best shot at beating the odds.

“I wanted to finish out the semester and get to winter break for my kids,” said Sean, who teaches and coaches near Lewisville. “My kids are everything to me.”

Not long after his parotid (salivary gland) tumor diagnosis, Sean began experiencing symptoms quite rapidly; the most concerning of which was facial paralysis. “The doctors had never seen anything like it before,” recalled Sean. “My biopsies kept coming back as atypical, and there was a heightened sense of urgency when we realized that it was affecting the nerves in my face.”

Parotid tumors often cause swelling in the face or jaw, and can include symptoms such as problems swallowing, numbness, burning, or pins-and-needles sensations in the face. Proton therapy for head and neck cancers affords the opportunity to preserve the tongue muscle, taste, and the ability to swallow, often avoiding the future need for speech therapy or alternative feeding methods. Head and neck cancers comprise about four percent of U.S. cancer cases and develop more frequently in men than women.