A medical student had two-thirds of her tongue removed and recreated with her leg after stubborn mouth ulcers turned out to be cancer.
Rachel Morton, who studies in Edinburgh, developed tongue ulcers in 2019.
The 21-year-old claims the sores lasted for a year until one side of her tongue was completely covered and deformed.
After struggling to be seen by doctors, Ms Morton changed her primary care practice in November 2020.
She was then referred for a biopsy before being diagnosed with tongue cancer on December 18, 2020 at the age of 19.
Rachel Morton (pictured above), who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, said she started getting ulcers on her tongue in 2019, which she initially only attributed to being busy starting university, but she went to have them examined
After the life-saving surgery, Ms. Morton had to learn to walk and talk again and, remarkably, did not take any time away from her studies, having resumed attending online lectures just four days later. The 15-year-old dancer then had two rounds of chemotherapy, 30 rounds of radiation therapy and speech therapy for six months before finally being given the all-clear in June 2021
The enthusiastic baker had ten separate surgeries in one 16-hour session to fracture her jaw and remove two-thirds of her tongue and lymph nodes.
The surgeons then used muscle and blood vessels from her thigh to reconstruct her tongue and the arteries and veins in her neck.
After the life-saving surgery, Ms. Morton had to learn to walk and talk again and, remarkably, did not take any time away from her studies, having resumed attending online lectures just four days later.
The 15-year-old dancer then had two rounds of chemotherapy, 30 rounds of radiation therapy and speech therapy for six months before finally being given the all-clear in June 2021.
WHAT IS TONGUE CANCER?
Tongue cancer is a form of head and neck cancer.
Although the exact number of people affected is unclear, around 12,000 people are diagnosed with some form of head and neck cancer in the UK each year.
And in the US, 51,540 new patients are diagnosed annually.
Cancer can develop in the tongue of the mouth — the front two-thirds that’s visible when you stick your tongue out at someone — which is classified as oral cancer.
Or it can start at the base of the tongue near the throat, which is a form of oropharyngeal cancer.
Symptoms can include:
- Red or white spot that doesn’t go away
- Persistent sore throat
- Ulcer or lump on the tongue that does not get better
- pain when swallowing
- numbness in the mouth
- Unexplained bleeding
- Earache (this is rare)
Most head and neck cancers have no clear cause, but smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and the HPV virus are risk factors.
Early-stage cancer (when the growth is less than 4 cm and is contained in the tongue) can be removed by surgery.
Radiation therapy may also be required.
Advanced cancer may require surgery to remove the entire tongue, as well as chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy.
Source: Cancer Research UK
Ms Morton, who is interested in a career as a psychiatrist, has multiple scars, including a “Harry Potter-esque” one on her chin, one from a tracheotomy, down her neck, stomach and leg.
When Ms. Morton’s ulcers first appeared as a neophyte, she had various telephone consultations with the doctor and also saw the dentist, who prescribed both antibiotics for her.
By the time she moved to Edinburgh to start her second year at university, they had become so painful that her tongue was so deformed she could no longer stick it out or drink alcohol.
She said: “I had tongue ulcers on my 18th birthday, I couldn’t drink alcohol because they were so sore.
“When I’m a bit tired, exhausted or stressed from exams, I seem to be a bit prone to ulcers anyway, so I just blame it and start university.
“I went to the doctor and got painkillers, Bonjela and stuff like that.
“I still had them a year later, but I wasn’t overly concerned about it. I had so much other stuff going on in my life and it wasn’t really on top of my mind.
“It was a few boils at first, but over the course of a year they got bigger and spread, covering the whole side of my tongue. They were really red, sore and painful.
“I went through the process of going through a lot of different things [medical] People and you don’t really get taken care of, and at one point a doctor actually said, “There’s really nothing else we can do”.
“I had moved to Edinburgh and was getting very tired. I didn’t really get it at first, but I did an online course and then just fell asleep afterwards.
“And maybe once a week my lips would get really red, dry, swollen and sore. I also got a rash, it almost looked like I had an allergy [to something].
“At that point I was getting really bad tonsil pain, I felt like I had a sinus infection or an ear infection. Everything on the left side of my face and neck felt.’
When Ms. Morton’s ulcers first appeared as a neophyte, she had various telephone consultations with the doctor and also saw the dentist, who prescribed both antibiotics for her. By the time she moved to Edinburgh to start her second year at university, they had become so painful that her tongue was so deformed she could no longer stick it out or drink alcohol
But the student said she has fully embraced her scars as they show how strong, resilient and powerful her body is to have fought and overcome such an aggressive cancer
Ms Morton said she is being screened for a range of conditions including hemochromatosis – an inherited condition in which levels of iron in the body slowly build up over many years.
She booked an appointment with a new family doctor in November 2020, who sent her for a biopsy, and days later, on December 18, she was diagnosed with tongue cancer.
Ms Morton said: “The biopsy was probably one of the worst experiences of the whole thing – it was absolutely awful.
“You lie there, they obviously stun you, but it’s the sound of the scissors cutting your tongue because it’s such a strong muscle, it really took a lot of strength.
“They told me they would contact me in a couple of weeks and four days later I got a call, I had just taken an exam and they told me to call them back as soon as possible. It was pretty urgent news.
“At that moment I was like, ‘I have cancer, I know it’.
“We went into the surgeon’s room and he had a box of tissues there. There were all these little queues that made me think, ‘oh ok, I know what’s going on now’.
“He had never spoken to anyone my young age, with tongue cancer. He said he’s only ever treated people over the age of 60, usually men who have smoked and drunk throughout their lives.
Ms Morton, who is interested in a career as a psychiatrist, has multiple scars, including a “Harry Potter-esque” one on her chin, one from a tracheotomy, down her neck, stomach and leg
“When he told me I have cancer, I don’t remember but my mum does, he had this rash trying to tell us because he just felt so uncomfortable. I felt sorry for him because it was a terrible situation.
“It was a really surreal experience. You go into survival mode. You think ‘ok, this is reality, this is going to happen and I’m going to get through it’.’
Exactly one month after her diagnosis, she underwent surgery.
They had to use some muscles and blood vessels from her legs to reconstruct her tongue and the arteries and veins in her neck.
They first tried to get it off her calf but after that it wasn’t possible, they used her thigh so most of her entire left leg had been operated on.
She then had a tracheostomy for about four days and a nasogastric tube for about nine months.
This was followed by two chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments, which she had five days a week for six weeks, as well as speech therapy for about six months.