Gregory Robinson
A woman has described her shock after discovering hair growing from her tongue after she had a skin transplant. Watch the video below:
Cameron Weeks Newsom said she was eating one day when she noticed a hair in her mouth. After feeling around to try and get it out, she soon realised that there was hair growing out of her tongue.
"It was just completely covered in leg hair, like it would be on your forearm or your thigh," she told Tyla about the ordeal.
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There's a powerful story behind Cameron's tongue hair incident, which happened after her life saving tongue transplant. She was diagnosed with stage four cancer after a tumour was found on her tongue. She explained that she did not know she had the illness 'for the first two years'.
She needed surgery in which muscle and skin from her thigh was taken to reconstruct her tongue, which led to it growing hair.
"Which no one told me it was going to do, which I feel like is kind of important," Cameron added.
At her next doctor's appointment, Cameron asked the medical professionals to explain why her new tongue was growing hair. Thankfully, Cameron's shock was fairly short lived after the doctors informed her that radiation would 'burn it off,' leaving her with a hairless tongue.
Cameron explained what life has been like with her new tongue following her cancer treatment.
"I cannot taste anything on my new side, but I can taste everything on my normal side, so... you know, mostly taste comes from your nose anyways.
"I can't feel a single thing, I can't... it reverberates from this side [the 'normal' side] like, if I brush my tongue with, like, an electric toothbrush, I can feel it vibrating on the other side, like a tremor.
"But if I were to, let's say, eat something really hot, I can burn my skin on that side, which I did so many times when I first started eating because I can't feel it."
Cameron said when she was getting used to her new tongue, she would often wake up with blisters on the transplanted side of her tongue because she was unable to feel when her food was too hot.
As part of her recovery, Cameron had to go to a physical therapist because she could not open her mouth wider than one finger whereas most people can open their own mouths the width of three fingers.
Cameron's son has been one of her biggest supporters and has been a source of encouragement for his mum.
"My son, when he was little, said 'Mummy you have the strongest tongue in the world because it came from your leg.'"
Over 36,000 social media users keep up with Cameron on TikTok where she says she has been inundated with supportive and thankful messages from those who have had life changing surgeries and those looking for hope amid cancer battles.
For help, information or to donate to research, please visit Cancer Research UK.