At the end of December, a sudden sharp pain in his molars pushed Pierre-Jean, a 23-year-old Belgian, to seek medical advice. He first thinks of a simple abscess. “I had a lot of pain in my molars,” he says. “I waited a week and a half before making an appointment with the dentist, because I thought it would go away.”
The dentist quickly notices an abnormality and sends him to a dental surgeon for a biopsy. The intervention takes place on Christmas Day. Pierre-Jean remains confident while waiting for the results: a consultation has already been scheduled at Jessa Hospital in January, and the absence of news reassures him. But after additional analyzes and the opinion of specialists from UZ Leuven, the verdict fell on January 5: a rare form of bone cancer had developed in his left jaw. “On television you sometimes see how people react to this kind of news, but in reality it’s indescribable. At that moment, your world stops spinning,” confides the Belgian from Diepenbeek to our colleagues at Nieuwsblad. An experienced nurse told him that he had only seen one case similar to the face in his 20-year career.
The same day, he also learned that he carried Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic mutation that greatly increases the risk of cancer. “It was a lot of information that was difficult to digest all at once,” adds Pierre-Jean. After six weeks of chemotherapy, the young man remains in good spirits. “I’m not in a lot of pain. Sure, it hurts and it causes nausea, but it’s not that bad.” A major operation is planned for April 1: a large part of his jaw will be removed and reconstructed using a fragment of fibula. A sportsman, he made a special request: “I asked them if they could remove the bone from my left leg. I’m a skier and a footballer, and for these two sports, I rely heavily on my right leg.
The illness also upsets her family, already affected by her mother-in-law’s breast cancer. His mother reduced her working hours to support him, and the support of those close to him helps him to keep going. “The support I receive from my parents is very important to me,” he confides. Even if seeing his friends partying on social networks weighs on him, “I feel like I’m wasting a year of my life”, Pierre-Jean refuses to let it get him down. “The most important thing is that I heal.” He already notices a reduction in the pressure in his jaw and is pleased with the absence of metastases. “This, coupled with the fact that the cancer has not yet spread, is a good sign for me.”
