Cancer runs in my family. My mom alone has lost three of her sisters to the disease. So, when I heard a doctor tell me, “You have throat cancer,” I just went numb.

But I’m a pragmatist. So, once my mind got a handle on that, I asked the doctor about my prognosis. At first, he paused, and my heart dropped into my feet. But then he said my prognosis was excellent, because we’d caught the cancer fairly early and I’d never been a smoker...