His cancerous larynx was removed and now he can speak again.

Just a few months ago, Marty Kedian of Haverhill, Massachusetts, couldn't speak a word and didn't know if he'd ever be able to again.

But in February, after a diagnosis of laryngeal cancer and several years of surgeries, Kedian underwent a total laryngeal replacement surgery.

“I have an 82-year-old mother and I couldn't talk to her on the phone. I spoke to her the other day and she listened to everything I was saying,” Khedian said. What actually happened Guest host Peter Armstrong.

Four months after his transplant at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, he says his voice is still hoarse and he has trouble speaking at times, but he is able to speak.

“Every time I talk about it I can't believe it happened,” Kedian said.

The 59-year-old man is only the third person in the United States to have had a total laryngeal replacement, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The nonprofit US academic medical center says this is the first time it's been done in a patient with active cancer. It's part of a clinical trial that Dr. David Lott, director of the Mayo Clinic's Larynx and Trachea Transplant Program, hopes will improve the success of the procedure.

Lott and his team announced the results of their clinical trial on Tuesday. Published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

“I think just having this conversation and bringing awareness to people of this issue gives them hope and awareness that they're not alone,” Lott said.

Surgery

Before his cancer diagnosis, Kedian considered himself a talkative person and loved making friends and talking to new people.

But in 2013, he noticed he was having difficulty swallowing food. At first, he thought it was an allergy and didn't think much of it.

After a series of tests, it was discovered he had a rare type of laryngeal cancer called chondrosarcoma.

That led to surgery, the first in 2014 and the first of dozens more over the next decade.

The surgery ended up leaving him with a hoarse, almost inaudible voice, and he was no longer able to breathe on his own, so a tracheotomy tube was inserted through a hole in the front of his neck so he could breathe.

“It was really bad when I lost my voice. I couldn't speak to my friends, my family, my granddaughter,” Khedian said.

“You don't want to walk around people because they won't listen to what you have to say. When you try to talk, the only word you always hear is 'what'.”

He was told his final option was to have his larynx (also called the larynx) removed. But he refused and turned to Lott at the Mayo Clinic for help. Lott and his team were researching ways to restore and save a person's voice. Kedian was hopeful.

According to the Mayo Clinic, laryngeal transplants carry significant risks, particularly the use of immunosuppressant therapy, which reduces the risk of organ rejection but also weakens the body's immune system response, increasing the risk of cancer spreading.

But on February 29, he underwent surgery, which required six surgeons and took 21 hours, and their first priority was to remove his cancerous larynx.

The surgeons were then able to transplant the donated larynx, along with the adjacent tissue and the tiny blood vessels that nourish them. Using microsurgical techniques, they connected the nerves that are important for Kedian to feel when he needs to swallow and to move his vocal cords, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“It was astonishing,” Lott said, “and keep in mind, we're talking about someone who had a full throat transplant just a little over four months ago.”

Further recovery awaits

Kedian says her diagnosis and losing her voice have had a major impact on her quality of life.

“When you can't speak up, it makes you feel like a lesser person,” Khedian said.

Since the surgery, his voice has recovered about 60 percent. He can now swallow and breathe on his own, and doctors say his speech should continue to improve over the next year.

“The fact that we've been able to regain so much function in such a short period of time has far exceeded my expectations,” Lott said.

Lott says the success goes beyond Kedian's recovery: He said he's learned from Kedian's journey and hopes this option will be made available to more people.

But Lott says there's still a lot of work to be done.

“How can we do this safely so that patients who have low-grade cancer and ultimately more aggressive cancer don't have to go through the pain of having to have their vocal cords removed?” Lott said.

“Better days are coming, we're just working to get there.”