Doctors Had To Replace Half Of This Woman's Tongue With Her Thigh Muscle, And The Results Are Mind Blowing

This is 41-year-old Cameron Newsom.

You may recognize her from this viral TikTok, which now has over 4.4 million views.

@camiflauge

What were you thinking #quadgains #thightok #muscles #scars #scienceexperiments #plasticsurgeryjourney

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In the clip, she reveals that part of her tongue was replaced with muscle from her thigh.

You can clearly see the area of her leg that was removed!

It all started 12 years ago. "My dentist found a white spot on my tongue. It didn't hurt or anything," she told BuzzFeed. "They sent me to an oral surgeon to get it biopsied, but the results didn't show anything."

"One year later, my dentist said the spots had grown into two white spots," she continued. "So once again, they told me they wanted to do a biopsy. The results came back, and nothing was wrong."

Two years after the second biopsy, Cameron felt a soreness in her mouth. "I contacted my dentist because my tongue had started to be very painful. There wasn't anything that you could see, but probably three or four months went by and you could see a tumor growing on my tongue," she said.

At first, Cameron's doctor thought that she bit her tongue, which was what was causing the pain. She was prescribed anti-fungal medicine, but the tumor continued to grow. "They kept putting me on more meds, assigning more payments, and more fungal medicine," she explained. Eventually, she decided to see a different doctor, and was then diagnosed with a type of oral cancer, called stage four squamous cell carcinoma.

"Before going to the new doctor, I had Web MD'd it, so I kind of had an idea by then that I may have had some sort of cancer," she said. "And obviously I was upset that I had cancer, but I was more upset because the doctor delivered the message to me as if it were a death sentence — and I didn't feel that way."

For the following nine months after the diagnosis, Cameron went through chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, again. "Their plan was to shrink the tumor down. That way when I got to surgery, they maybe wouldn't have to remove as much of it," she said. "Fortunately, the chemo did make it smaller. The tumor was .5 centimeters, and it shrunk to half of that size."

After the chemotherapy, her surgeons removed the tumor from her tongue, and attached tissue from her thigh to replace what was missing. "They took the muscle and some of the skin from my thigh to build a 'free flap,' which is what they called it, and they had to attach the blood vessels to my tongue. That way, my real tongue could support the life of my new tongue — because without blood flow, the tissue would not be able to stay alive after the surgery," she said.

"And fun fact — because the graft came from my thigh, I did have hair on my tongue for a few weeks," she laughed. "I don't know about you, but I don't shave the top of my thighs all year round. And so, you know how that hair is baby fine? I was eating one day and felt a hair in my mouth. And sure enough, I looked in the mirror, and there were long hairs on only that side of my tongue."

"I went to the doctor and I was like, 'What the hell? Is this gonna be forever?' But they told me radiation will burn all those hair follicles off," she said.

Since she was still only 33 years old at the time of the surgery, Cameron's doctors wanted to continue to fight the cancer with the most aggressive treatment possible. So after the operation, she was advised to continue with radiation and more rounds of chemotherapy, to make sure the cancer wouldn't come back.

And after months of post-op radiation and chemotherapy, Cameron finally began her recovery journey. "I couldn't smell for three months, and I couldn't eat spicy things for the longest time," she said. "And then also like coughing and sneezing were terrifying. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, please just don't let me cough or sneeze,' because I was afraid of the pain."

Now, 12 years since she found the white spot on her tongue, she shares her life on TikTok.

@camiflauge

Do I have taste? #dotzpretzels #tatstetest #eatitup #oralcancerawareness #tonguesplit #cancersurvivor #plasticsurgery

? In The Mood - Glenn Miller

"I want to thank people who watch my TikToks for their acceptance. Every time I would meet someone new, I thought that people are just going behind my back and saying, 'What is wrong with that woman,' and just treat me like an alien, and that is exactly the opposite of what TikTok has done. Everyone is so just like curious and polite and telling me I'm beautiful, and I'm just like, 'Oh my god. I did not expect that.' So it just goes to show how great the TikTok community is."

@camiflauge

The battle #theplan #chemotherapy #radiationtherapy #pegtube #cancerpatient #cancerfree #isurvived

? Copy That by BadKidMacei - semaj lesley

You can keep up with Cameron by following her on TikTok.