DOUG ALDRICH Opens Up About His Cancer Battle: I Just Got Done With Six Weeks Of Radiation

During an appearance on the December 16 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", former WHITESNAKE and DIO and current THE DEAD DAISIES guitarist Doug Aldrich has offered an update on his health, three months after he underwent a "very successful" surgery following a throat cancer diagnosis. Regarding how he got diagnosed with throat cancer, Doug said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I never thought I would get cancer. It just never occurred to me. I've always been super healthy and — knock on wood — I never had a major anything. And one day, I think it was in May, I was about to go on tour with THE DAISIES and I was shaving and I saw a little lump on my neck. And I was, like, 'Well, that looks when you're sick, you've got swollen glands or something.' It was on one side. And I thought, 'That doesn't hurt at all. My throat doesn't [hurt]. Nothing hurts.' And I went on tour, and I said, 'Hey, something like that could be a viral thing. Let it roll for a couple weeks, and if it doesn't change, then make an appointment to see your doctor.' And so I went and did the dates — it was, like, three weeks of dates or something in the U.S., I believe. And I got home and got an appointment. It took a little time. As you know, to get a doctor's appointment it takes a minute. So it was another few weeks before I got in. And immediately they looked at it in order for me to get a CT scan, [and] after reading that they were concerned there was something in there. It wasn't a major concern. Then I did a little MRI of the neck, and that's when they could measure the bump, and they realized that this was really concerning. [And they told me] I should go see an ear, nose and throat doctor. And my doctor was, like, 'Hey, it could be cancer. It could be cancerous, but it could be benign. It could be whatever. Don't worry about it yet.' But already my mind was starting to get a little bit nervous. So I go to the ear, nose and throat doctor, and he goes, 'I see it. It's on your tonsil. And if you don't mind, I'm gonna grab a piece of it with the tweezers and I'll send it in for a biopsy,' which, actually, just for those people that care about this stuff, you could go get a biopsy and it would cost you thousands of dollars or insurance or whatever. The way this guy did it was old school — he just ripped a chunk off my tonsil and sent it in and it saved me a ton of money to do that. So it came back positive for HPV 16 throat cancer. Definitely not good. So, right then you start freaking out, like, 'Oh, man. Okay, what stage is it?', whatever. And it's very difficult to get definitive answers on stuff, 'cause nobody really knows until you do all these tests and all this stuff. So there's probably three or four weeks before you find out what stage it is or whatever."

Doug continued: "So that's how it started. And then I went and started going through the process. By that time, I was doing a lot of tests and stuff. I have insurance for me and my family, and I maxed out my deductible. So that was good. But insurance is a whole another thing. Doctors' bills — you get bills; every day there's bills from this and that, and you don't know what to pay and what not to pay. It's very confusing. But anyway, that's how it started. That's how it was diagnosed. And I immediately got in with… My wife got me into a doctor at UCLA Medical Center, which is close in L.A. And then my sister's boyfriend is a plastic surgeon, and he got me in with a doctor for a second opinion from Cedar Sinai in L.A. And that's the guy I went with, a guy called Dr. Ho."

Asked by host Eddie Trunk to clarify that he "had no symptoms" beyond this little bump and that he wasn't "in pain or anything", Doug said: "Nothing. Sometimes people lose weight. I had no symptoms — nothing. It was just a bump, and it was not super noticeable, but then, of course, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And another thing that's important for people [to know] is that the most important thing you can do to protect yourself is get checked. Well, this particular cancer, it usually gets discovered by a dentist. But I don't have many problems with my teeth, and a dentist is expensive. So I would be, like, 'Look, my kids, I wanna make sure they're checked, and [they have] braces and whatever they need to do. That's what I'm gonna spend my money on.' I was, like, 'I don't need to go to the dentist. I just brush my teeth and floss. That's it.' But had I gone to the dentist, he would have seen this before it… It's called metastasizing when it switches from the actual tumor to a lymph node, and that's what my neck bump was; it was a lymph node that had gotten swollen. So a dentist would have seen that thing on my tonsil a lot sooner and it would have been much easier to deal with, or my treatment would have been much easier to deal with. But it got discovered when it was already metastasized in the lymph node and then the question was, what stage is it? How big is it? How far did it go?"

Doug added: "So the bottom line is you've gotta get diagnosed of where you're at, and you need to go to an oncologist. And I would recommend [for you to] go to a big hospital in your area and make an appointment, start making appointments with whoever you can. And that's what my wife did. She reached out to UCLA because we've used them before for kids and stuff. And so she got me that one. And the guy, he had been there a long time, had a great record, and UCLA is great and everything, but he said, 'We don't really do stages anymore. It's kind of an old thing that they did with cancer. They call it stage 1 through 4, whatever.' Basically, he goes, 'I don't know what yours is exactly. It could be 2, it could be 3, it could be 1 and a half, whatever. But you're gonna need surgery.'

"When it's in your throat, you've got all these things that are connected in there. So they're looking down your nose, looking in your throat, looking at X-rays and scans and all this stuff. And by the way, around that time too, the doctor ordered a PET scan, which is a full-on body [scan] to see if the cancer has spread to like your lungs or your liver or kidneys or whatever, and that's scary. When you start thinking, like, 'When is my appointment? Oh, it's in two weeks. It could be right now growing anywhere.' And you don't know, so you've gotta get this PET scan. But, fortunately, so far and at that time, I was all clear everywhere except for that spot. So he said, 'You've gotta operate,' and he goes, 'The good thing is I'm a great surgeon. I can do the outside part on your lymph nodes, but I can't do the inside, which is gonna be a robotic surgery. I need somebody else to do that.' And then when I met with Dr. Ho at Cedar Sinai, he was younger. He had probably had more up-to-date kind of training in terms of robotics. And he goes, 'I'm gonna do both surgeries myself.' And he was very confident."

According to Aldrich, another issue had come up during that time which affected the way he went about his surgery. He explained: "There's a nerve in your neck that connects your shoulder that's involved in this area. And when they do the surgery, if they clip that nerve, then you're have a real hard time lifting your arm, which wouldn't affect my guitar playing, but I wouldn't be able to lift my arm up very well. And I'm thinking not just about playing guitar, but I'm thinking about, like, shooting a basketball with my kids or something. So I asked him about it, and he goes, 'We'll do our best. I think we can save that nerve.' And he did. So first thing [they did was the] surgery, and then after surgery, they decide what kind of treatments, whether they got it all and you don't need to do anything, or if you have to have radiation, or chemo, or both. And I had to get radiation."

Asked if he is now done with all the radiation, Doug said: "They told me that I needed radiation just to clear it up, because it had gone to the lymph nodes on my neck and it looked like it was pretty contained, but there might be a little piece or some fragments that would come off, so they need to zap them with radiation just to make sure. And I started reading about what radiation was gonna be like, and my wife did, and it's not fun any way you do it. It's basically frying certain parts of your body, and there's a lot of side effects that happen from that, so I wasn't looking forward to it. And I thought maybe because the surgeon did a good job, and I've got a lot of friends that have gone through [similar] stuff … I was hoping I could get a little bit of a less radiation than what I got. I got six weeks. But they said, 'Hey, you are eligible for a clinical trial where you could get three weeks radiation, but you've gotta get three doses of chemo as well. And it works out really well.' And I was excited about that, and I qualified for it, but the problem with the chemo when you're dealing with head and neck is it makes your ears ring and you can lose hearing. And I already got one ear that's ringing really bad with tinnitus or whatever you call it. So I wasn't a good candidate for that. So I went for the six weeks of radiation, which is five days a week. It takes 15 minutes under the microwave thing or whatever, the laser, whatever, that proton thing, and you do it five days a week. Then they need to give you two days to rest for six weeks. So I just wrapped up."

Asked if he has been given the "all clear" now, Doug said: "The biggest issue from the radiation was I'd get nauseated and major fatigue, and then little by little your neck on the outside starts to fry and my neck now is like baby skin. It's all brand new skin. And so I was lucky. I'm feeling great. I got done with it. I'm starting to think about getting to the gym. And I probably lost 10 pounds, which some people lose 40 or 50 or 100… So I just try to eat healthy and eat protein, and they just said, 'Keep your calories up.' And I've been really lucky, man, but there's a lot of side effects. There's a lot of stuff that's a pain in the ass. I still can't open my mouth to take a nice big bite of a hamburger, and then my jaw gets really tired, because… So I've got this fibrosis — it's like called TMJ or whatever — so I can't really eat; it's hard to eat, it's hard to chew. That's one thing. And then I've got no taste, because that radiation basically fries your taste buds. So that hopefully will come back. Because that's one of the things that's crazy, man, is without taste… When I got COVID a couple years ago, I didn't lose my taste, so I never knew what it was like."

"So to answer your earlier question [about whether I have been given the 'all clear'], I'm basically done with the treatment and the surgery and all that stuff," he continued. "Now I've gotta wait three months and they're gonna do a PET scan again and see if there's anything left. Chances are they got it all. If not, then I'll just deal with it, whatever it is. And you start getting freaked out about it, but there's so many people that go through various stages and things of cancer and they're still around and they're still fighting and kicking ass. And they really are warriors. The key is just to try and catch it early, if you can."

In late September, Doug's wife Daniela "Danni" Aldrich said that his surgery, which she described as "five long hours of multiple steps", "went incredibly well", adding that "Doug pushed through like the fighter he is. Even the nurse called him a superhero for his strength and determination right after!" she wrote. "He is the strongest person I know."

As a result of Doug's surgery, he was not able to take part in THE DEAD DAISIES' recent European tour and was temporarily replaced by Reb Beach (WHITESNAKE, WINGER).

Aldrich played with DIO for a short period between 2002 and 2006. He was also a member of WHITESNAKE from 2002 to 2014 before leaving to spend more time with his family. The guitarist played on two WHITESNAKE studio albums, 2008's "Good To Be Bad" and 2011's "Forevermore", and appeared on several live releases, including 2013's "Made In Japan" and "Made In Britain/The World Records".

Aldrich left WHITESNAKE 10 years ago, saying in a statement that he "had several recording and live commitments," so he "needed a more flexible schedule to conclude these before going full force as normal." He added: "Unfortunately, my schedule was not workable."

Having also played with LION, HOUSE OF LORDS, BAD MOON RISING, HURRICANE and Glenn Hughes, Aldrich joined THE DEAD DAISIES in 2016 and can be heard on that band's last five albums, 2016's "Make Some Noise", 2018's "Burn It Down", 2021's "Holy Ground", 2022's "Radiance" and 2024's "Light 'Em Up".