Howdy! I’m Aaron Wayne, laryngectomee.
I was born in July of 1947 and raised in the Rocky Mountains, growing up mostly in Wyoming. I left there at seventeen to join the Navy and see the world. I saw more of Vietnam than anywhere else. I married a California girl and settled down near L.A. after my discharge. Sadly, Shelley passed away last May after nearly 56 years of putting up with me.
In early 2019 I began having a slight sore throat, an earache, and started becoming hoarse. After a few misdiagnoses, a nurse during my third visit to the emergency room finally called in an ENT and after he scoped my throat and found a small growth on my larynx, arranged for an emergency tracheotomy that same evening. As I was being strapped to the operating table, he told me that I would need to be awake for the first part of it. He took a biopsy sample during the. operation. Several agonising days later, the diagnosis was squamous cell carcinoma and a total laryngectomy was recommended. Being the curious type, I had already begun to research the topic and had already decided to go ahead with the surgery as quickly as possible, and the surgery was scheduled. I was accepted into the Head and Neck Cancer group at UCLA and suddenly had a dozen doctors that I had to meet with, some individually and some in a group. I was interviewed by a psychologist and approved for the procedure.
Waking up after the tracheostomy in the ICU, I had been given a clipboard full of blank sheets of paper and a pen. I had my total laryngectomy on October 21, 2019. Over the next seven months this clipboard became my primary means of communication. While I was recovering from the total laryngectomy, I was attended by one respiratory technician/therapist who became interested in all of the notes that I had been keeping and asked if he could show them to some of his other patients. When he returned them, he encouraged me to keep writing and perhaps write them up as an article that he and other respiratory care providers might use as a reference. I ended up writing a small book. My first book was titled “The Silent Partner”, the title of which is actually the punch line to a humorous story at the end of the book. The story involved in my starting a business making decorative stickers for my HME and selling them to other larys. As it turned out, I actually did start making the stickers. However, I don’t sell them, I give them away. I retired from the business world four years before my diagnosis and had been looking for something to do with my time when I became a lary. Since I had a lot of time on my hands, I decided to use it constructively and become an advocate for laryngectomee awareness. Since then I have created more than sixty designs for HME stickers, including a few that glow in the dark and two that light up when pressed, and written a second book: “The Silent Knight”, a collection of essays that I and a few other larys had written about being a lary and what our lives were like. I am currently working on a cozy mystery that will feature a lary who assists a friend at US Customs in catching some smugglers. I am also trying to get on national television and have already sent audition tapes
to a few game shows.
I manage the Facebook page “Food for Warriors”, which deals with disphagia among HNC patients, and I started a Facebook page for larys who want to or must travel, called: “Lary Travel Group”. I do sell my books, but I also give many away to new larys, caregivers, and to SLP’s and other medical care providers who care for my fellow warriors. I have also been asked to mentor students who are studying to become SLP’s.In short, this is my Life After Lary.
Lary on, my fellow warriors!
Aaron Wayne
*Aaron sadly passed away in 2025. We thank him for his contribution and he will be remembered here. Rest in Peace.
You can find Aaron's books linked below. Due to Aaron's passing we would recommend the digital version.*
