My diagnosis was one of the scariest moments of my life. I remember everything about that day. The day is pretty much stuck as freeze frame images in my brain. When you hear you have cancer you automatically think, “ will I die?” Lucky for me, it wouldn’t be that type of fight.
First and foremost I want to speak to the importance of regular check-ups and doctors visits. I , like most men did not frequently visit my doctor or dentist. For me it was about healthy eating and frequent exercise. I believed that as long as I did those things there was no need to go to the doctor. When I was younger I also didn’t have medical insurance, so check ups were not even something on my radar. Unfortunately as I got older i kept the same habits even though I was able to obtain affordable coverage. With that said, make sure you take check-ups seriously.
I honestly thought none of this could happen to me. I was a track athlete in college (albeit a frequently hurt one), I had completed two half marathons, and I am a vegetarian.
Back to my diagnosis. I originally started by experiencing two things, pain in my front teeth and shifting of my teeth. The pain was not overwhelming, instead it was more of a dull pain similar to a toothache. I started to notice the shift about 2 months after the pain started. The shift was strange. It made one of my teeth appear to be longer than the other. I am someone who was born with two big front “buck” teeth so the slightest shift was very noticeable. At first I could slightly tell and didn’t think anything of it. I never got my wisdom teeth removed so i figured they were pushing my teeth into each other. As i started to keep putting off appointments, I noticed the shift becoming worse and worse. My tooth had began to shift about a full centimeter. After finally getting some time away from my job, I decided to schedule a doctors visit.
I scheduled the appointment to get my wisdom teeth removed and inquire about braces. When i walked in, the first thing i did was show the dentist the shift and explain the pain. She agreed that it may be my wisdom teeth shifting so she started an X-ray. After the X-ray the dentist sat me down and began a cold test. The cold test was a metal rod that had this chilling fluid on it. The dentist proceeded to test each one of my teeth, to try to see if something was rotten. After testing about 3 teeth, she came to the three teeth closes to the front of my mouth. I did not give any type of response when she placed the metal rod on those teeth. She must have tried for 5 minutes to get a response, and nothing happened. This was the first sign.
I could now tell she was worried. She said to me that those three teeth had died. They had no feeling. Next she started feeling the roof of my mouth. This is when she made the discovery. She asked me, “ do you feel this lump behind your front teeth.” I honestly hadn’t felt any type of lump. She began to explain to me that the lump was pretty significant in size and it was causing the shift in my teeth
She then showed me the X-ray and told me the lump had eaten away at the bone connecting those dead teeth. After about 20 minutes of more tests and X-rays she directed me to another dentist with more experience. When i asked her what she thought it could be, she said it could be just a cyst that needed to be drained. This was the first time I was told it was NOT cancer.I left that office and went to the next dentist, in my gut something was telling me she was wrong.
At dentist number 2 things were different. This dentist was older, and so was his practice. He introduced himself as semi-retired and taking very few new patients. We instantly got to work dissecting the lump. The dentist laid me back and gave me some numbing medicine. He was going to need to try and burst the cyst. He tried hard to drain it out. The process of getting his tools under my gums was pretty painful. I could feel him trying to peel under them to drain the lump. The problem was there was nothing to drain. The lump was hard as a rock. I could tell he was too was worried. He then explained to me that he would like to do a biopsy. The biopsy was easy, he cut the lump open and took a tissue sample. The sample was about the size of a dime. They told me it would take about two weeks. For yet another time I was told, “ Do not worry you are too young and healthy for it to be cancer. You don’t drink or do drugs so you will be fine.”
The next two weeks were nerve racking. I was Googling everything I could to find a diagnosis. I looked at pictures of oral cancer and I didn’t have any of the symptoms. My wife told me to stop looking stuff up, I was only going to make it worse on myself. About 5 days after the biopsy the dentist called me in to see him. I was relieved to finally move on from everything. That day my wife had a doctors appointment at the same time so I brought my 2 year old son with me.
I can remember how strange it felt going to get my results. It felt like everyone already knew and I was walking the plank on a pirate ship. As soon as I sat down there was about 4 dental assistants in the room. I remember feeling uncomfortable. Then i thought maybe they were there to play with my son. I sat him on my lap and the Dentist walked in. He looked me square in the eye and said, “ Well you have cancer.” Just that simple, no apology, no warm up, no good news/ bad news sandwich, absolutely nothing- it was a straight diagnosis. Everything literally went slow motion. All i could say was, “ What, What, What, What, and more What?” All the dental assistants were emotional. The girl who did the biopsy had started to cry. All i could think of was the fact that I had my boy in my lap, and that doctors appointment my wife had- was to confirm her pregnancy. I would be the father of another boy in 5 months from that day.
I wanted to go home. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to just be a boy again. I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t cry, i was too much in shock to cry. The dentist was speaking but it all was Charlie Browns teacher. The one thing I did manage to hear, was the word Malignant. That was huge. He told me that it would not spread, it would not kill me. Suddenly I felt a sense of calm. He told me that Ameloblastoma had a very low possibility of spreading to other parts of the body. It had a VERY low probability to take my life. I remember saying, “ Well ok this will be life altering and not life threatening- that is a blessing.” The dentist agreed. He then gave me a referral to University of Michigan Dentistry.
I still was a wreck. The first person I called was my wife. She took it like a champ, she is the strongest person I know. She just asked me if I was ready to fight with her. She gave me strength, I would see her later that day. My mom took it the worst. I am her only child, and at most turns I have tried to make good choices and have came out ok. She cried hard. She did not take it well. My Dad wasn’t shook, he never is. In his calm corporate manor he made me recount the interaction with the Dentist. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to die. He then would begin to research everything he could on Ameloblastoma.
No one knows how Ameloblastoma forms or why someone gets it. Some believe it is from under-developed teeth. However, there is not a clear reason as to why or how it forms. If left untreated depending on your location you can have problems with your sinus or problems with brain. I was lucky. My tumor was located in the front of my mouth. It would not affect my brain, only danger would be contamination of my sinus.
My doctors at U of M are the best. The first day I walked in as a referral, I felt right at home. Everyone from the receptionist to the head surgeon was amazing. My first day there I met the head surgeon in the Maxiillery department. I met every single person who would ever touch my file. All the way to the top, that was huge it made me feel important. Over the next 3 weeks I would undergo CAT Scans and plenty of other tests. During this time I met my primary dentist Dr. Munz. She may be the nicest person I have met in my entire 32 years of life. She would counsel me on my surgery and the different obturators that I will have. I will speak more about the obturators later. After my 3 weeks, I was told exactly what would happen. I would be losing 6-8 teeth, all of the cartilage, bone, and tissue behind my top lip, and a decent chunk of the roof of my mouth. The surgery would be life changing, But not life threatening. Thank God!
