The Gap

on the things we ignore because there's cancer

I was brushing my teeth this morning and doing what I always do - feeling the gap in my mouth where I no longer have my first left side molar on the top. This morning I paused to think about this gap which my tongue finds throughout the day. The gap that means I don’t get to chew properly on the left side of my mouth. The gap I’m aware of when I’m smiling with a big teeth-showing grin. Today it consciously reminded me of the journey I’ve been on since November 2022 when I heard those 3 words - you have cancer.

I don’t know why today it made me pause whilst brushing, maybe because of the sciatic pain I have almost constantly when I’m standing or walking. Whatever the reason, I finally made the link.

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Let me take you back. I began clenching my jaw as I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer and especially at night. I’d wake with a headache, lines down the inside of my cheeks where I’d been chewing and clenching my jaws through the night. Mouth ulcers became frequent and painful. It became part of the cancer journey. STRESS. And I ignored it as ‘just another thing’. Painful but not as painful and overwhelming as weekly chemotherapy. There was cancer to worry about and toothache seemed like a side issue that was an afterthought.

The day before surgery I went to the emergency dentist as the pain was really bad and I just wanted to check in with them that there was nothing serious going on. An Xray revealed an abscess under a cracked tooth. AN ABSCESS UNDER A CRACKED TOOTH. I had been clenching so hard, I’d cracked a molar. A MOLAR. I’d ignored it as a side issue….because cancer.

They wanted and needed to remove it there and then as I wouldn’t be able to go in for breast surgery already infected. So they did. There and then. Followed by antibiotics and the anaesthetist would then decide if she was happy with access to my mouth should I need intubation during surgery…

There was no space for ‘dwelling’ on the emotion of this because my body was already braced against any further emotion having just finished 6 months of chemotherapy.

No time to pause, no time to feel, no time to grieve, no time to cry, no time to process, no time to experience any of the emotion. I shut it all down. I couldn’t ‘fall apart’ now. I didn’t have time.

And I’ve been carrying it ever since. I continue to wake with tension. I’m still bracing. I’m now piecing together all the strands of the impact of cancer on my body, my nervous system, my emotions. That tooth is the trauma. It's the slow unpacking of what the tooth meant - evidence of what my body has been carrying since my diagnosis.

The tension I feel in my body today is another way my body is nudging me to face the experience. It’s urging me to grieve. It’s reminding me that healing is an ever-evolving process, it’s not linear. As one thing is healed another seems to demand attention.

So there is no resolution, there is absolutely not a sense of, 'okay I've dealt with that now'- it will become an ongoing conversation between myself and that gap. That gap in my mouth continues to teach me so much about survival, resilience, stoicism, the many layers of trauma and about the many things we don’t have time to heal because there’s always something more pressing that shouts louder for our attention.

Love

Rebecca x

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