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Peter Tork’s Recovery
Peter Tork tells us he’s “doing very well.” The Monkees member recently underwe surgery for a malignant tumor in his mouth. For doctors to access the affected area, they needed to break his jaw by cutting it. As a result he’s on a soft food diet that’s “not that much fun. You can only eat so much ice cream before you kind of fill up.” For now it’s a “lotta soups, lots of smoothies. I worked my way thru an order of grilled salmon [Monday] night, which involved a lot of mashing with a fork, and I was tired by the time I was done. [It] tasted great, though. Still, I’ll be happy when I can start chewing again.”
While “playing the guitar is still great,” Peter says he doesn’t yet “have the stamina for it that I used to. That may come back, God willing, but it’s lovely while it lasts. I can sing, not quite as well as before, though that may come back, too.”
Tork is happy with the progress he’s been making. “I’d have given my eye teeth three weeks ago to feel as good, and to have the attention span, and to be doing the things I’m doing these days. What with a good prognosis, I have to count myself a very lucky guy.” While his doctors don’t believe he’ll need chemotherapy, Peter will have to undergo radiation treatment to be prevent the cancer from returning.
