New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert has conquered cancer yet again. Gilbert confirmed on September 15 that the tumor discovered in his spine – about a month ago – was surgically removed.
Last year’s pheochromocytoma diagnosis was not Gilbert’s first cancer scare. Back in 2010, he underwent thyroid surgery to remove a suspicious lump. While he was recovering from that operation, guitarist Anthony Raneri of Bayside stepped in for Gilbert on New Found Glory’s tour. Last year the guitarist had a successful surgery on a similar tumor affecting things like his liver.
The type of cancer in both cases, pheochromocytoma, is a rare tumor that can develop in the adrenal system. As a by-product of the surgery, the pop-punk guitarist now has an artificial disc in his spine. He’ll continue radiation treatments explaining that otherwise the cancer is gone.
Gilbert states, “I was supposed to start radiation on Monday for the small amount of Pheochromocytoma left in my T-12 Vertebrae! A few days before that I started having the worst hip pain! Excruciating. So bad I couldn’t sit longer than 10 minutes or sleep longer than 2 hours at a time because of the pain. I was standing up all night for several days. Awful. Was having to watch TV standing up.”
(Chad Gilbert in 2021)
He resumes, “So on Tuesday I went to the hospital for an MRI of my hip! Good news: my hip was fine. Bad news: the tumor in my spine started growing again in the wrong direction and got aggressive very quickly. So by noon yesterday I was in surgery again! It lasted 6 hours this time and they removed the rest of my T-12 vertebrae! I now have a fake vertebrae! Good news is we cut out the entire tumor now! That whole bastard got the boot!”
Adding, “So the cancer in my spine is gone! We will still hit it with light radiation just to be thorough for any microscopic invisible ones. But this battle has been won. No more tumor. And I continue to turn into Robochad.”
