A med student who put her ulcers down to being run down from exam stress had to have two-thirds of her tongue removed and recreated using her leg when they turned out to be cancer. Rachel Morton said that she started getting ulcers on her tongue back in 2019, which she initially just put down to being busy starting university, but went to get them checked out.
The 21-year-old claims that over the course of a year, the sores persisted and got progressively worse until they covered one side of her tongue and it became misshapen. The medicine student also became extremely tired, experienced dry, red and swollen lips, bad tonsil aches, and the left side of her face also felt abnormal.
After various GP appointments, Rachel returned in November 2020, was referred for a biopsy and just days later she was diagnosed with tongue cancer at the age of 19. The keen baker had ten different surgeries in one 16 hour sitting to break her jaw, remove two-thirds of her tongue, lymph nodes, as well as blood supply as it can carry malignant cells.
