In a new interview with Ernest Skinner of Canada’s Border City Rock Talk, former WHITESNAKE and DIO and current THE DEAD DAISIES guitarist Doug Aldrich offered an update on his health, nearly five months after he underwent a “very successful” surgery following a throat cancer diagnosis. Regarding how he found out about the seriousness of his diagnosis, Doug said: “Once I met with the oncologist, he said, ‘Hey, this is very treatable. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass, but it’s very treatable.’ But prior to that — it was about two or three weeks earlier when I got the news that it was cancerous, it was definitely cancer — I didn’t know what kind of cancer it as and how advanced it was. That’s the scary part, because, man, I was, like… It was just a nerve-racking situation because I’ve got kids. I’ve lived a great life, I’m super blessed and lucky, and if it’s my time, I’ll go, but I don’t wanna leave yet because I’ve gotta help my kids get through life a little bit.”

Doug continued: “It was definitely a setback mentally. And I just had to kind of go, ‘Look, I’m gonna leave it in God’s hands and just whatever it is, it is, and I’ll just deal with it my best I can.’ And then the doctor said it was very treatable and it would be a pain in the ass. It would be a surgery and also radiation. And I thought, ‘Okay, the surgery is the worst part of it,’ but actually radiation is the worst… Fortunately, I didn’t have to have chemo, so that was good. They took out my tonsil where it was, and then they took out a bunch of lymph nodes right here. And the scar is pretty good, actually.”

Elaborating on the negative effects of his treatment, Aldrich said: “One of the biggest things was I lost all my taste, so you could smell stuff, but you couldn’t taste it… On one side, for some reason, it was really metallic… I would gargle all day with salt water and baking soda, and that helped a bit with a lot of issues. But anyway, the bottom line is I got my blood test the other day and it’s zero, whereas prior to my surgery, it was 277, whatever that is. Now it’s zero. So that’s good. I’ve still gotta get scanned on my full body to make sure there’s no organs that got anything in ’em, but I think I’m pretty good. I’m hoping so.”

He added: “Going through that treatment, I lost a bit of weight, and so I’m trying to build back a little bit without gaining in the other spots. I like that I lost some weight.”

In a new interview with Ernest Skinner of Canada’s Border City Rock Talk, former WHITESNAKE and DIO and current THE DEAD DAISIES guitarist Doug Aldrich offered an update on his health, nearly five months after he underwent a “very successful” surgery following a throat cancer diagnosis. Regarding how he found out about the seriousness of his diagnosis, Doug said: “Once I met with the oncologist, he said, ‘Hey, this is very treatable. You’re gonna be fine. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass, but it’s very treatable.’ But prior to that — it was about two or three weeks earlier when I got the news that it was cancerous, it was definitely cancer — I didn’t know what kind of cancer it as and how advanced it was. That’s the scary part, because, man, I was, like… It was just a nerve-racking situation because I’ve got kids. I’ve lived a great life, I’m super blessed and lucky, and if it’s my time, I’ll go, but I don’t wanna leave yet because I’ve gotta help my kids get through life a little bit.”

Doug continued: “It was definitely a setback mentally. And I just had to kind of go, ‘Look, I’m gonna leave it in God’s hands and just whatever it is, it is, and I’ll just deal with it my best I can.’ And then the doctor said it was very treatable and it would be a pain in the ass. It would be a surgery and also radiation. And I thought, ‘Okay, the surgery is the worst part of it,’ but actually radiation is the worst… Fortunately, I didn’t have to have chemo, so that was good. They took out my tonsil where it was, and then they took out a bunch of lymph nodes right here. And the scar is pretty good, actually.”

Elaborating on the negative effects of his treatment, Aldrich said: “One of the biggest things was I lost all my taste, so you could smell stuff, but you couldn’t taste it… On one side, for some reason, it was really metallic… I would gargle all day with salt water and baking soda, and that helped a bit with a lot of issues. But anyway, the bottom line is I got my blood test the other day and it’s zero, whereas prior to my surgery, it was 277, whatever that is. Now it’s zero. So that’s good. I’ve still gotta get scanned on my full body to make sure there’s no organs that got anything in ’em, but I think I’m pretty good. I’m hoping so.”

He added: “Going through that treatment, I lost a bit of weight, and so I’m trying to build back a little bit without gaining in the other spots. I like that I lost some weight.”