As a registered nurse, Asha Bhandari was familiar with cancer – even less common cancer types, like oral cancer. But she never believed she’d receive her own diagnosis, even when she first noticed the sore on her lower gum – an oral cancer symptom. Even when that sore started to grow after a few weeks. And even when the oral surgeon took a biopsy and three days later gave her the news that it was cancerous.

“I was so devastated...