‘Face of Tobacco’ brings message to local students

The choices you make today can affect you for the rest of your life.

That was the message oral cancer survivor Gruen Von Behrens brought to Sault High and other area schools this past week in a series of assemblies.

“Guys, I’m not an actor,” said the badly disfigured man in a high-pitched voice which, at times, was hard to understand. “This isn‘t a mask I can take off at night.”

Von Behrens began chewing tobacco on a camping trip with some buddies at the age of 13. By the time he was 17-years-old he was addicted to Copenhagen — chewing, he guessed, about a half-can a day. The 190-pound junior was a start third basemen for his high school team and, with 27 home runs in his final season at the plate, he appeared to have his choice to play at virtually any college in the nation.

But he was derailed by a light spot that formed on his tongue which eventually left him slurring his speech, slobbering and drooling. His mother scheduled a trip to the dentist, believing Gruen needed to have his wisdom teeth pulled only to find out what her son had already suspected — this wasn’t going to be a simple dental procedure.

“My mom knew the instant I was diagnosed with cancer how it would mess up my face,” said Gruen. “I had no idea of the battle I was going to undergo.”

The first surgery took a third of Gruen’s tongue, half his neck muscles and lymph nodes. He would endure 33 more surgeries including the loss of all his teeth, his lower mandible and a painful procedure where his fibula — a leg bone —  was used in facial reconstruction surgery to provide a new bottom jaw.

“For a year after radiation was over, I couldn’t drink a Coke,” he recalled of the intense burning in his mouth. “I couldn’t have ketchup on my french fries.”

His weight would fall from 190 pounds down to 130 pounds and his days of competitive baseball were over.

“I had gone from a person people looked up to to someone they looked at and whispered about,” said Gruen. “Everywhere I go, everything I do, people stare at me.”

Gruen said that as a spokesman for the National Spit Tobacco Education Program, he had spoken to more than 2 million kids throughout North America as well as professional athletes to warn of the dangers associated with tobacco.

“The doctors are still trying to put my face together after 15 years and $3 million,” he added. “Tobacco did this to me — no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

And if anyone missed the message, Gruen made sure to make the connection: “This is the face of tobacco.”

Gruen’s visit — which included Sault High, the Sault Area Middle School and J.K.L. Bahweting — was funded by Sault Tribe Community Health. It was organized by Community Health Educator Lauren Eveleigh in conjunction with the Chippewa County Tobacco Free Living Coalition and the Community Prevention Coalition.