It’s a fist-bump, thumbs-up kind of day for Sandy Castillo-Sosa. Upon hearing that he is still cancer-free, Sandy closes his eyes and smiles. “You always worry, right?” asks Rebecca Ryan, program coordinator for BMC’s Head & Neck Surgery team. Sandy nods. After a total laryngectomy (TL) for laryngeal cancer, Sandy can’t physically speak, but he has become an expert at communicating by mouthing words, writing, and gesturing. For his check-ins at BMC, Rebecca also makes sure to arrange a video call with Interpreter Services so Sandy can hear updates and next steps in Spanish.
As the good news settles in, Sandy relaxes and shifts his attention to his family. He thumbs through hundreds of photos of his four children, Yuliana (9), Andy (11), Randy (19), and Yolandy (20). He misses his wife of 21 years, Mayreini, who waits in the Dominican Republic for clearance to join Sandy and their kids in Boston. “It’s not easy,” Sandy writes, “but I have to keep moving forward every day. I want to see my children grow up and meet my grandchildren.”
After a long journey, Sandy doesn’t take his future for granted. In 2015, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in the Dominican Republic, and underwent surgery there in 2017. Though he could at first eat with caution, complications from surgery required him to transition to a feeding tube. In 2019, his brother heard about BMC’s Dr. Heather Edwards, director of the Division of Head & Neck Surgery, and encouraged Sandy to move.
Sandy has since remained cancer-free under the care of the Head & Neck team. “Dr. Edwards is a good doctor… and a good person,” Sandy mouths. When asked about other members of his team — including Rebecca; Vipasha Agnihotrigupta, oncology social worker; and Jake Savage, case manager at BMC’s Immigrant and Refugee Health Center — he types into his phone, “very helpful,” “hardworking,” “kind.” He puts his hand over his heart and nods his head in thanks.
For Sandy, the combination of medical expertise and compassion matters. He hopes to one day be able to eat by mouth and speak through a voice prosthesis called a TEP. But for today, he is happy to be cancer-free. “Es un buen día,” he mouths. “It’s a good day.”