DentaltownUK October/November 2019 - 26

My oral cancer diagnosis

Top photo: 4 days after surgery.
Above: 11 days after surgery.

26

I had until this point convinced myself
to live in constant fear-fear of failure,
fear of rejection, fear of staff issues, fear of
clinic issues and fear of life in general. The
irony is, I didn't understand what real fear
was until I was faced with one of the most
frightening prospects-my cancer diagnosis.
I had just poured the best part of three years
building a startup and surviving a recession
and slow economy. Just when things were
looking great for me, I got devastated in
the worst possible way.
It started with an innocent sensation:
I woke up feeling as though I had bit my
tongue. I spoke to my colleague and best
friend about it, because the feeling did not
go away. Over the next few weeks I noticed
an ulcer form, and eating had become
painful the minute any food touched it.
Concerned, I booked an appointment with
an oral surgeon to look at it.
To add some context, I'm a healthy
33-year-old with no history of smoking or
chewing tobacco, and I rarely drink alcohol.
The first thing I asked my surgeon was if
he thought it was malignant. Based on the
symptoms and my great health history, we
both thought it highly unlikely.
We tried a round of prednisone, because
the symptoms were very close to erosive lichen
planus, but that did not resolve. The lesion
progressed, and I was getting earaches and
constant pain in my lower jaw; I found it
hard to sleep and focus at work. I tried my
best to put on a brave face as we biopsied the
lesion soon after the round of prednisone
had no effect.
I won't forget the Thursday afternoon
in July when my friend and oral surgeon
Dr. Lee Darichuk surprised me with an
unexpected visit. He had come after work to
personally give me the results of the biopsy.
Until this point, I was very confident that it
would be some form of autoimmune disease,
because until this point, all of my training
from dental school had heavily skewed my
opinion toward a sense of arrogance that
it couldn't happen to me because I didn't

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 // dentaltownuk.com

smoke, chew or drink. Also, the lesion was
painful, and we're taught malignancies are
rarely painful. Imagine my surprise when
he sadly informed me that I had squamous
cell carcinoma of the left side of my tongue.
I would like to say that at this point I was
completely devastated, but that wasn't the
case because I had watched one of my close
friends battle a rare form of non-Hodgkin
lymphoma for more than a year. Watching
him go through multiple rounds of chemo
and struggle with the effects of a bone marrow
transplant really hardened me. I was there
for his 30th birthday when he was in the
hospital hooked up to IVs. There's a sense
of sadness that's hard to explain in watching
someone suffer for no fault of their own.
I had learned a long time ago that life
was neither kind nor fair, but the unjust
suffering of good people is hard to bear for
even the strongest of people.
I scrambled to find a locum to bail
me out, because I was a single dentist in
a growing clinic with six staff members. I
was living the nightmare every single owner
dentist has, especially younger dentists with
big bank loans and fledgling startups to take
care of. My concern was also for my staff,
many of whom depend on the clinic for their
livelihoods, and for my patients who have
been kind enough to honor me with their
trust, which is hard to replace. The ENT
surgeon had rushed my case, so I had less
than two weeks to find a locum to entrust
my life's work with while I was recovering.
With the help of a friend who's involved
in the local dental community, I posted a
locum position and soon I was blessed with
a response from a dentist who had recently
sold his clinic and was looking to locum.
Turns out I had worked with him before, and
not only was he a great and kind person, he
was an excellent dentist. During this whole
process, my locum, Dr. Jeff Bilodeau, has
been amazing in keeping the clinic going and
taking great care of my patients and staff.
Most importantly, he has provided me with
a huge sense of relief because I could focus
on recovery and not worry about my clinic.
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DentaltownUK October/November 2019

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