Anish Vij
A man from Blackpool who was diagnosed with mouth cancer has revealed the unusual warning sign in his teeth that everyone should know about.
Meat Loaf tribute act Peter Young believes that, in a way, the 'Bat Out of Hell' singer saved his life from beyond the grave.
The American singer - born as Marvin Lee Aday - died at the age of 74 on 20 January, 2022, with no official cause of death released to the public.
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Peter, 67, was asked to pay tribute to him on the BBC, and looking back at interview footage, he noticed that he had an unusual gap in his teeth.
He said: "I wouldn’t have checked, I never went to the dentist often enough. It’s a bit of a lesson for everyone, that.
“I saw the video later on the news, and because I was getting old I’d lost a few teeth over the years, and there was a gap at the bottom of my mouth, I didn’t think anyone could see it.”
Seven months later, the singer - who plays around the world - visited a dentist in Cyprus for implants, and when he got home, he was given the shock diagnosis of stage four mouth cancer in December 2022.
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Peter said: “Had Meat Loaf not died, I don’t think I’d be here any more.
“I wouldn’t have done the interview, and I wouldn’t have known. The likelihood is, I would have been dead."
The doctor who diagnosed Peter said he wouldn't be able to sing again, which 'broke him'.
“I’ve been doing it for 30 years, it was my living. I was about to retire, but I would never retire from singing,” he added.
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Peter said that he was off work for 'about 12 months' following the 11-hour operation to remove his cancer, and was without teeth 'for seven or eight months'.
“They had to fit implants, because they had to remove all the teeth in the mouth for the operation,” he said.
The rest of Peter's teeth have now been replaced with implants and, thankfully, he is back singing again and is now cancer-free.
To commemorate the third anniversary of Meat Loaf's death, the tribute act has released a new song titled 'January 20th'.
Peter said: “I need to pay my bills that have mounted up during lockdown and Covid and everything else.
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“I wasn’t forced to carry on. I’ll sing ‘til I drop, whilst I can still do it I’m gonna still do it.
“Meat Loaf’s not the easiest to do, but it seems to be my niche.”