A 35-year-old woman discovered a canker sore on the back of her tongue that wouldn't go away. At the time, it was 2020, and she figured it might be a symptom of COVID-19. So she made an appointment at her local urgent care, and though nothing was found of it then, what she learned later on after the canker sore made no improvement was far from what she expected.
Katie Drablos, a dancer and choreographer from New York, had stage 4 tongue cancer.
“I was not in the age group or having lived a life that would leave me to be privy to something like oral cancer,” she told Today in an interview.
After her first urgent care appointment, she noticed the canker sore getting more painful. By 2021, the pain became consistent. Another visit to urgent care only ended in the doctor prescribing her medication for what he believed to be a cold sore.
Though the pain subsided for a short while, it soon returned.
"I was like, 'I need to go to the doctor again because this isn’t going away,'" Katie shared.
She made an appointment to see an otolaryngologist (an ear, nose, and throat doctor), and that appointment led to answers. A biopsy revealed that she had tongue cancer, but it was only detected to be at stage 2. Tongue surgery and reconstruction and a neck dissection were the treatment plan that came next.
Just a few weeks after undergoing surgery, Katie received a call that doctors had found cancer in her neck. Rather than being at stage 2, she was actually in stage 4.
"I felt like this very wounded being in a lot of ways," she shared.
Katie had to undergo chemotherapy and radiation in addition to the tongue surgery she'd just had.
“The surgery affected so many parts of my body," she said. "The flap they used to reconstruct my tongue involved major surgery on my left arm, and then they grafted with skin from my left leg."
As the end of her treatment came, around June 2021, she started on her road to recovery. Walks with her mom helped to improve her strength. Occupational therapy helped her learn how to use her reconstructed tongue.
Katie has been able to return to dance, which she now uses as a means of storytelling.
“My body is magnificent, how it can heal. I’ll feel really sad about some of the losses but then also incredibly grateful and with a deeper sense of gratitude than I ever had pre-cancer,” she shared.
“Dancing has been the best medicine, keeping me mentally feeling like myself, being able to express my emotions.”
