Cook County commissioner now in remission after cancer treatment
After treatment for throat cancer, Cook County Board Commissioner Scott Britton is feeling better and back at events.
Diagnosed in August, Britton underwent intravenous chemotherapy treatments once weekly for five weeks and external radiation treatments 35 days over a seven-week span, ending Nov. 8. No surgery was required.
"I'm considered in remission and, God willing, I don't ever have to do this again," said Britton, whose 14th District covers 19 municipalities, including Glenview, Northbrook, Northfield and Wilmette.
Doctors told him he'll have some side effects for between three to six months after treatment. Mainly what he's dealing with is a raspy throat.
"I have some side effects, but I feel a lot better, and my blood work shows that my immune system is back to normal," he said. " ... I've just got to be patient and realize that this is the new normal."
Britton has a final computerized topography (CT) scan scheduled for February, along with a physical examination.
The cancer was located close to the vocal chords, which had Britton "a little freaked out" considering he is a trial attorney and a politician.
"Needing to talk is a big thing," he said.
Fortunately, before the cancer diagnosis a new provision in the board's Rules and Administration Committee, which Britton chairs, allowed for remote attendance of board meetings. Britton kept on schedule at home and even during treatment, he said.
"At one point I had an IV in my arm and I was voting on county board business, which was very fortunate I was able to do because there was important stuff going on," he said.
"But it was very strange. I was in a hospital in my gown legislating at the same time."
Aiming for a second term as 14th District commissioner, it's imperative that Britton get up and at 'em with a looming date of March 14 as the deadline for submitting signatures on a nominating petition.
After a December of laying low, he was back on the scene after the turn of the new year, masked and socially distant.
On Jan. 22 Britton was scheduled to attend two events, and he said he'd been to "probably a half-dozen things" since getting out of the house.
He's hoping COVID and its variants will soon settle down.
"There's stuff for me to do, so by March I think things are really going to look a lot different," Britton said.
As he told the Herald for an Oct. 14 story while still undergoing treatment, his situation struck home to the necessity of a strong Cook County Health and Hospitals System. It includes John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital and Provident Hospital of Cook County, both in Chicago, and 14 community health centers, the closest being in Arlington Heights.
The health system is run by an independent board, Britton said, but the Cook County Board of Commissioners sets the budget.
"We want to make sure that people don't go to Cook County because they have to, but because they want to," Britton said. "That's my goal."