'I thought work stress had given me mouth ulcer - the truth was much worse'
Jessica Tappenden-Rowell noticed what she believed to be a mouth ulcer under her tongue but ignored the sore until it became incredibly painful while eating and yawning
A carer was horrified to discover her 'work stress' mouth ulcer was cancer - and had a new tongue built using skin from her tattooed arm. Jessica Tappenden-Rowell noticed what she believed to be a mouth ulcer under her tongue in May 2024 and thought she was just run down from work.
The 23-year-old ignored the sore until it became incredibly painful while eating and yawning and after visiting her GP, was referred to York Hospital. After a tongue biopsy in August, Jessica was devastated to learn the sore was cancerous in September. Jessica was diagnosed with stage one squamous cell carcinoma and after an MRI and CT scan determined the cancer hadn't spread, doctors arranged an operation to remove the tumour.
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During the op, surgeons removed the cancerous part of her tongue and replaced it with a section of her forearm - so her new tongue includes a festival tattoo. Now cancer-free, Jessica is urging people to get ulcers that linger for more than two weeks checked out by a doctor.
Jessica, from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, said: "I had just started a new job so I thought I was just run down, feeling a bit tired. I was exhausted from working. I just ignored it [the ulcer]. I was so busy with work anyway it didn't cross my mind to get it checked out. I just didn't really even think about it.
"A couple of months had gone by and it started becoming really painful every time I was eating and yawning, it was bringing tears to my eyes every time I was yawning. Any time I was eating tomatoes or something acidic like oranges or lemons it was really hurting. It didn't even cross my mind that it would be something bad.
"It just started getting weirder, there was redness and there were white bumps around it. I could see that it was getting worse. It's incredible what they can do, it really is amazing. They've taken my arm and put it in my mouth. From not thinking it was anything, to suddenly having cancer, to suddenly having a life-changing surgery. It was wild.
"That was like a smack in the face. It was insane. I can't even explain what it felt like going from, 'oh yeah it's nothing, it'll be nothing' to literally, 'okay, this could be one of the worst things ever'.
On October 1 she underwent free flap surgery at Castle Hill hospital in Cottingham, East Riding of Yorkshire, where doctors removed the cancerous part of her tongue and replaced it with a section of her forearm.
They took a six-inch by two-inch section of skin from her arm along with a vein and an artery and plugged this into Jessica's tongue to provide blood flow.
Jessica had a tattoo of the initials BOA on her forearm, which stands for Bloodstock Open Air, in honour of the Derbyshire festival. Now that this skin has been removed from her arm and stitched into her mouth, the tattoo can be seen on the underside of her tongue.
After the surgery Jessica woke up in the ICU with a temporary tracheostomy and was resigned to a diet of soft foods for two months while she got used to her new tongue. Now she can eat a wider variety of things but still struggles with certain foods like chocolate and bread.
Jessica said: "When it came to speaking I was really slurred and really slow because everything in my mouth was so swollen and my tongue muscle was a lot weaker. You have to get used to your tongue and using it to speak, it took me months. Only recently people have said to me 'you sound so much like you did before'. I'm not there yet, I still have some days where I struggle a bit.
"If my mouth is extra tired, if I've been talking quite a lot then I get even more slurry just because my muscles in my tongue are just not the same. It takes a lot to build it back up again. The whole area that is just my arm skin, that's not muscle. It doesn't move the same way. My tongue is now a different shape. It's very strange but eating has been the biggest challenge because I can't taste or feel anything on my right hand side.
"At first I couldn't eat anything that wasn't porridge or scrambled egg. Bread is quite stodgy and it was just getting stuck to the roof of my mouth and I can't use my tongue to get something off the roof of my mouth, I was using my fingers all the time.
"I'm still like that, my fingers are in my mouth all the time. I feel like a toddler. Chocolate gets stuck to the roof of my mouth too. It was amazing when I heard I was cancer free, my surgeon was choking up on the phone."
Jessica had planned to go back to university to study for a second degree in nursing but has postponed this and is currently working in a hospitality job two days a week.
Although Jessica did vape before her diagnosis, she says her surgeon told her this was not the cause of the cancer. Jessica said: "Previous to my diagnosis I did smoke. I vaped for a couple of years and obviously I went to uni, I drank. But it was never anything severe, it was what a normal person would do.
"My surgeon said, 'even if you had been a severe alcoholic and smoker, at your age this would not have done anything to you yet. That would not have been the cause.
"You're too young, you've not had enough years to have caused that kind of damage yet.' It's just bad luck." Jessica is now speaking about her ordeal to encourage people to get anything unusual checked out.
"If you have an ulcer that has not gone away within two weeks, get it checked. The earlier you go, the less chance of this type of surgery. If I had gone earlier I might not have [needed] such a large portion of my tongue removed."
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