I Went for a Dental Check-Up—My Diagnosis Changed My World

In March 2022, I thought I had bitten my cheek coming off of novocaine after a routine dental procedure. At first I felt a ridge of scar tissue. It didn’t hurt, so I ignored it.

After a few months, a sore formed under the bump and it began to hurt. By July the sore became an open wound and hurt a lot. I tried to treat it at home for two weeks with home remedies. When that didn’t work, I went to see my dentist. He took one look, and 45 minutes later I was in the oral surgeon’s office.

I remember him bending over me, saying, “Let’s have a look.” Then, I remember his face dropping. He put his hand on my shoulder. It was not like him—we usually joke and talk about our kids and school. He said, “I see a tumor that is about an inch long in your cheek, I am going to send you for a biopsy right now. Whatever you have next, cancel it.”

Two weeks later the results came back. That inch-long tumor in my cheek was cancer. I would need surgery, chemo, radiation, a skin graft two square inches from my thigh into my cheek, and 15 lymph nodes cut out of my neck.

By the time treatment was over, I was unable to wash myself, stand up or walk unassisted, chew, hear, and even cry. For two months, I sat watching with heavy lids as my daughter navigated being 14 and my husband John navigated everything else, including me. My family was my motivation, and I could not even form the words to tell them.

Depression ambushed me. I was scarred and disfigured, too weak to do even the most basic hygiene. I stayed in as much as I could, only leaving the house for doctor visits. Eventually, I was able to cry, so I did. My life had been saved, but the debris and anguish had me questioning why. Then my husband said we were going to the gym.

During the half a year of treatment, my husband only left my side for two hours a day to go to Lifetime in Chappaqua, NY. The trainers were his support network and became his dearest friends. I used to attend before my diagnosis.

After my surgery but prior to chemo and radiation, I wanted to visit Dylan, a trainer who took 50 pounds off my husband and who had coached me. We were always very fond of each other. When we saw each other, he hugged me for a minute, pulled away, saw my neck, and said, “You have to tell them that was a Great White.” I laughed as much as I could for the first time in months. That hug and laugh helped carry me back into the needles and the burning mask.

Halfway through my treatment, I became physically unable to eat, and the doctors gave me a week to stabilize my dangerously low weight with any calories I could or they would hospitalize me and surgically insert a feeding tube into my stomach, which would have to stay there for months.

John went to Lifetime and Stephanie, a trainer there, told him to go to a coffee shop and get the biggest sugar coffee drink they had, top it with whipped cream, and bring it to me. He did, and the next day he brought two, and by the end of the week I was cleared and got to spend the rest of my treatment with my family.

One day, we are on our way to radiation and John’s phone rang. It was Elena, a teacher at Lifetime. She said, “I have three hours off, I have a bucket, and I am coming to clean your house.”

Going to the gym was useless. But John had other plans. He had been working with yet another coach named Julie, and had explained to her that I was ashamed of how I looked and could only shuffle my feet. He asked if he could bring me into her class and stand in the back with me and move me a little.

She agreed but that only lasted ten minutes. I was in a scarf and a hat in the back, and Julie saw me as much mentally as she did physically, and we began our three-month journey.

The first day she brought me to the front, she shuffled with me, and she would not allow any shame. One time, I fell weeping because neuropathy made it impossible to control my feet. She literally fell beside me, covered me, and whispered to me amongst a room full of people until she got me to stand and put weights in my hand.

The neuropathy was so bad I could only tremble and stumble on a treadmill. DJ, another trainer there, led a running class I used to love it, but after my treatment, I thought I would never be able to even jog again.

He worked with me too, every class, upping my speed while he encouraged me, until one day John was standing beside me and he’d just hit a button and I’d be running. I will never forget the feeling of my feet moving and DJ’s eyes lighting up. He stopped the class, announced that I had run for the first time in a year, and began crying.

My confidence started to come back inch by inch. All these trainers never looked at my face or neck, they looked at my heart instead. They each knew that they could rebuild me from the heart out.

Every day John would take class with me, handing me things and repeating what the teacher said to compensate for my hearing loss. Eventually I stopped covering my neck, because these people were working so hard to bring me back that I wanted to show them their progress. It went from confidence to dignity, on the shoulders of people lifting me.

Neuropathy made it hard to jump at all. Even an inch. But in Julie’s class, you jump up on two-foot blocks. When I was unable to jump, Julie took my hand, led me over to a two-foot block, and told me we would not stop until I jumped up.

She then brought me a three-inch step and I tripped on it. But we worked every day. A few weeks later, I did the three inches. It went from there. Two months later, she saw me stepping up on the two-foot block. I never imagined I could do that. She walked over, leaned into me, and whispered, “You can do this TODAY. You are a feather. You can fly. You can do this TODAY.”

Then she stepped back. I looked at her, thinking of all the time and work these loving people gave into putting me back together, and how far I had come because of their expertise and their faith in me. Most importantly, I trusted them.

I did not trust a future I was not sure I would ever have, I did not trust my body, I did not trust any reassurances, but because they kept showing up and lifting me, I trusted them when they told me I could do something.

Julie just stepped back and watched, the room went quiet, everyone turned. I closed my eyes and I flew onto the box. We all wept, we all hugged, and I felt what it is like to be lifted by people who are just doing it because they are good people.

Here’s what I learned: I went back to my dentist when it was all over. He hugged me and I started to cry. He asked, “How was it?” I gulped, “It was really really hard.” He whispered, “Well now you know you can do hard things.”

I learned community is where you make it, community can lift you higher than you can lift yourself, I learned there are good people everywhere, and I learned that I, and you, can do hard things.

Trish Burton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2022. She endured surgery, had her face burned in radiation, and had both chemo and COVID at the same time. Throughout the process, Trish displayed resilience to get her feet back under her and regained confidence with the support of Coach Julie Moksin Henick at Lifetime fitness. Trish is well into her road of recovery and is not celebrating victories. walking, accomplishing her first box jump ever, and teaching students.

All views expressed are the author’s own.

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