Local woman shares her story of how getting wisdom teeth removed led to her cancer diagnosis

IDAHO FALLS — An Idaho Falls woman’s life changed in an instant when getting her wisdom teeth removed led her to a cancer diagnosis.

Brittany Madder, 26, is a Thunder Ridge High School seminary teacher. Madder said she had a large bump on the roof of her mouth that had been there for at least a few months. It didn’t cause her pain until the week before she had her wisdom teeth out in September.

That’s when she noticed that area in her mouth was starting to feel sore, and she mentioned it to her oral surgeon.

“He looked kind of concerned and said, let’s do a CT scan of just your mouth and go from there,” Madder told EastIdahoNews.com.

Madder’s dentist initially thought she had an infection. Her oral surgeon, on the other hand, had seen one person before who had something similar to her, and he wanted to do a biopsy.

About a week later, Madder received a call from the oral surgeon’s office asking her to come in and go over the biopsy results.

“It was really emotional because the (oral surgeon) comes in and I looked at him and was like, ‘Is it bad news?'” she remembers asking. “He said, ‘It’s bad news.’ He had tears in his eyes. It was pretty traumatic.”

Madder was sent to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City. She was diagnosed with chondroblastic osteosarcoma (bone cancer).

“It’s a children’s cancer (and) it usually starts in your longer joints,” she explained. “It spreads rapidly. It’s really dangerous, but the thing is, it’s very uncommon to get it in the roof of your mouth. It’s really rare, but it’s better because it’s less likely to spread.”

On Oct. 21, 2024, Madder underwent an 8.5-hour surgery where doctors successfully removed the tumor in her mouth — which had grown into her teeth — and some lymph nodes. Doctors then needed to rebuild her upper palate and maxilla.

She had a bone transplant, where doctors took part of her fibula and moved it to her mouth, as well as a skin graft.

“I also had some arteries taken to connect everything, so it would take,” she said. “So now, I have my leg bone in the roof of my mouth and also skin from my leg on the roof of my mouth.”

Madder’s been trying to recover from the intense surgery while also doing fertility treatments so one day, she and her husband can have children. Madder had her eggs harvested last week before starting chemotherapy. She will do six rounds of chemo, which should take about seven months.

While this isn’t something the Madders — who have only been married three years — ever expected to happen to them, they are trying to find the positives in it all.

“(We) decided that this is happening to us, and there’s no point in being grumps about it,” Madder stated. “We can still be happy and find little things that help us feel normal.”

Madder doesn’t fault her dentist for thinking she simply had an infection, but she hopes her story encourages people to not be afraid to tell their dentist if they feel something is wrong.

“Don’t be afraid to tell your dentist, ‘Hey, I am concerned about this. Can we look into it more?'” she mentioned. “Don’t be afraid to say something because I was like, ‘Oh, it’s probably fine,’ but I’m thankful I had an oral surgeon that knew something needed to be done.”

She also expressed her gratitude for the community and how touching it’s been to watch people come together for her.

“I don’t think I realized how amazing it is to live in a place like Idaho Falls,” she said. “It’s so cool to see people supporting people and it’s a big thing I’ve learned that once I get through this, I want to be that support for other people.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help with the medical bills and the cost of the fertility treatments. To donate to the Madder family, click here.