Woman's tongue replaced with thigh to fight cancer: 'It grew leg hair' - New York Post
A bout with cancer left this 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.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.“The weirdest part of the whole experience was when I felt a rough texture on the thigh part of my tongue — and when I looked in the mirror it had started growing leg hair!”Now, with her husband, Anthony, 42, and her son, Hudson, 14, she’s living cancer-free with her new tongue after re-learning how to speak again“I can only taste on the right side of my tongue, which is the real side, and only chew on the right side because the left is attached to my gums,” she said