What began as a seemingly routine dental problem for a Texas mother-of-two rapidly spiralled into a life-or-death battle against an exceptionally rare and aggressive cancer.
From Dental Pain to a Devastating Diagnosis
Nancy Major, a 39-year-old single mother from Fannett, Texas, first noticed something was wrong in January. She developed a lump in her lower jaw that she and her doctors initially believed was an abscess linked to a wisdom tooth and a cold she was fighting at the time.
Alongside the painful lump and cold, she was experiencing unexplained weight loss and shortness of breath, which made simple tasks like climbing stairs a struggle. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics, but the medication provided no relief. The pressure from the swelling grew so intense that her back teeth began to feel loose.
A dentist decided to remove her back tooth, yet once again sent her home with medication that made no difference to her worsening condition. "Three weeks later I was still in pain, still losing weight, I dropped from 139lbs to just 108lbs, and I just knew something wasn't right," Major recalled.
The Fight for Answers and a Shocking Discovery
Major repeatedly returned to the hospital, begging for answers. Doctors performed a series of three CT scans, and while they could see the mass in her mouth growing, they still suspected it was merely an abscess. At one point, they even attempted to drain it.
"I could hear them pulling and scraping," Major remembered. "But nothing came out. There was just blood." The pain was unbearable, leaving her unable to eat or drink. She was exhausted, frightened, and wasting away.
Finally, a breakthrough came when an alert nurse examined Major's face and scans and immediately sounded the alarm. This medical practitioner realised it was not an abscess and ordered an urgent scan followed by a biopsy. The truth was uncovered: the mass was cancerous.
Major was transferred to a more advanced hospital in Texas and received a devastating diagnosis: a rare and extremely aggressive B-cell lymphoma with a shockingly low long-term survival rate. Despite the cancer being caught at stage one, meaning it had not spread, doctors warned her she had just a 14 to 20 percent chance of living for five more years.
A Lifeline and a Long Road to Recovery
Thankfully, a cousin who works as a doctor recommended she apply for a clinical trial to help cover the immense costs of treatment. After further biopsies and scans, Major was accepted into a lifesaving clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland—1,400 miles away from her family.
"NIH saved my life," she revealed. "If I didn't have those resources, I wouldn't be here today." The tumour that had taken over her jaw began shrinking rapidly once chemotherapy started. By her third treatment cycle, scans showed only a tiny speck remaining.
"My cancer is almost gone and it hasn't spread," she recently shared with her followers. "I have a very high chance of remission now. It's crazy how fast things changed in just a matter of weeks."
However, the treatment has come at a heartbreaking personal cost. Her two sons, D'siah, 8, and Kannon, 7, whom she calls her "entire heart," remain in Texas, cared for by her aunt and uncle. "I'm a mom; being away from my children for months has been the hardest part," she said.
Unable to work, Major now relies on just $900 a month from Social Security. She has turned to TikTok to share her journey and raise funds, and has set up a GoFundMe, which has so far raised more than $15,000. In a remarkable act of generosity, as she underwent her fifth and sixth rounds of chemotherapy, Major donated her hair to make wigs for children with cancer.
She remains hopeful and profoundly grateful for her online community, stating, "This journey has been made so much easier with all this support. Maybe I'll be the cure for this type of cancer. A girl can dream, right?"
