A bout with cancer left one woman without a tongue — until she got a new one made from her leg.
Surgeons took skin and muscle from the woman’s thigh to re-create the part of her tongue lost to her rare infection of squamous cell carcinoma.
Cameron Newsom, 42, had half her tongue removed in an effort to fight cancer after dealing with excruciating pain post-diagnosis in 2013.
“At the time of my diagnosis, I’d lost over seven pounds because I was unable to eat or drink, I was 33 at the time and in very good shape, so I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me.”
It all started after she noticed white spots on her tongue and her dentist recommended a biopsy for the painless spot.
Her tongue became sore and extremely sensitive, which made eating, drinking and talking a nightmare. While her dentists prescribed antibiotics, the symptoms worsened.
Eventually, her pink-colored tongue tumors were diagnosed by an ear, nose and throat specialist, who essentially handed her a “death sentence.”
She had stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma.
But the next step was removing the tumor, which also meant cutting off part of her tongue.
After a nine-and-a-half-hour surgery performed by some of the best oral surgeons based at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the infected portion of her tongue was replaced with skin and muscle from her thigh.
However the skin draft from her tongue began to grow hair.
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