Jessica Tappenden-Rowell was 23 when she noticed a sore under her tongue.
It was May 2024, and she had just started a new job. She thought it was exhaustion and ignored it for months, until eating tomatoes, oranges or lemons hurt and yawning brought her to tears. A biopsy in August and the results in September confirmed the unthinkable: stage one squamous cell carcinoma.
On October 1, at Castle Hill Hospital, surgeons removed the cancerous part of her tongue. To reconstruct it, they took a piece of skin from her forearm measuring about 15 by 5 centimeters, along with a vein and an artery that restored blood flow. That arm had the letters BOA tattooed on it, from a festival that cost her about 100 dollars. Today, the tattoo can be seen under her tongue.
She woke up in intensive care with a temporary tracheostomy and spent two months eating soft food. She still can’t taste anything on the right side, and bread and chocolate stick to the roof of her mouth. She is cancer-free, and her warning is clear: if an ulcer doesn’t go away within two weeks, get it checked.