I’ve been struggling to make myself understood ever since I was a senior in high school. In April 1985, I was diagnosed with stage III nasopharyngeal carcinoma (a rare type of throat cancer). And for a while, my throat was so raw and painful from the radiation treatments I received that I didn’t want to talk.

Those radiation treatments gave my voice a very “nasal” quality, too, so it was sometimes hard for people to understand...