'My leg helped rebuild my tongue after cancer'

12 hours ago 1

Jen SmithSouth West health correspondent

BBC A woman in a flowery blue dress, with a blue headscarf is standing in front of the camera holding her hands in front of her. She has a nose ring, and is wearing bangles and a watch on her wrists. She is smiling.

A woman whose tongue had to be reconstructed with a piece of her leg because of mouth cancer is urging people to check for the warning signs.

Candi Hulley, 52, from Bude, Cornwall, said a chance check-up at her dentist had led to her diagnosis.

The Mouth Cancer Foundation charity said more than 3,000 people died of mouth cancer last year nationally – a 20% rise over the past five years.

It said it wanted the public to know it was not just dentists who could check for mouth cancer and "if you're unsure, go and see your doctor, or a pharmacist".

A woman is showing her leg, which has a long scar down the back of her calf following an operation to reconstruct her tongue with veins and artery from her leg.

"My children call this my shark bite," Ms Hulley said as she displayed the back of her calf where surgeons removed veins and an artery to reconstruct nearly half of her tongue.

It took a team more than 12 hours to remove the tumour from her mouth to ensure she would be able to eat, speak and swallow again.

She said: "The plastic surgeon described it as like magic... I've had a few operations but that was pretty much the scariest thing I've ever been through."

Now she said she was urging people to check themselves for the warning signs.

She said: "I was lucky, it would have spread if it hadn't been monitored".

Head and shoulders of a woman lying in a hospital bed. She is wearing glasses, has a tube coming out of her nose and is wearing a hospital gown. She is smiling to the camera.

Ms Hulley said the recovery had been almost as intensive as the surgery, with a month spent in hospital and another six months before she could return to work.

She said: "I had speech therapists and nutritionists because I was on a feeding tube for so long – I lost loads of weight.

"Then you have to try and eat. That's scary, you can choke."

The Mouth Cancer Foundation said it believed awareness around the disease was low.

"We have figures that suggest only about 17% of the UK population is aware of mouth cancer," said dental hygienist Alison Brown from the charity.

"And it [treatment and recovery] can be particularly unpleasant – it can involve dissection of the tongue, people lose teeth, they have to learn to speak and eat again."

A woman with black glasses and a grey bob haircut is smiling to the camera. She is wearing a blue T-shirt with "Mouth Cancer Foundation" on it.

Dental students in the south-west of England are among those being taught to check for the signs of mouth cancer.

Fourth-year student Isabelle Adams, who is studying at the Peninsula Dental School in Truro, said such teaching was "so important".

She said: "When we're practising dentists, we're able to spot cancers early, and educate our patients so that they know when to spot when something's not normal."