A woman says she'll "never French kiss again" after having half of her tongue removed and replaced with leg tissue after a cancer diagnosis.<br /><br />Jamie Powell, 39, was diagnosed with tongue cancer in March 2020 after discovering a raised bump on her tongue.<br /><br />After undergoing tests, Jamie was told she had stage three cancer and would need half of her tongue removed as well some of the lymph nodes in her neck.<br /><br />She underwent the eight hour op in March 2020 and found herself having to learn how to talk and eat again - while coming to terms with her new tongue, which she says felt like a "foreign object".<br /><br />She then underwent 30 rounds of radiotherapy before being given the all clear on June 30, 2020.<br /><br />Jamie now hosts a podcast with a fellow tongue cancer survivors talking about the reality of the disease. <br /><br />Jamie, a special education worker, from Orange County, California, US, said: "It was unbelievably sad when I realised I couldn't kiss my husband, Jonathon, 40, again.<br /><br />"I didn't realise it until I was healed and starting to feel like my former self but all of a sudden, I just realised I wouldn't be able to kiss him again and I couldn't remember the last time we kissed.<br /><br />"I cried about it. I was sad. I was sad for him too - that I wasn't going to be enough.<br /><br />"I didn't even know you could get cancer of the tongue.<br /><br />"It was a massive shock to the system.<br /><br />"My entire sense of who I was being taken away.<br /><br />"It was devastating, but it was either have this surgery or I'm not going to be around.<br /><br />"When I began to heal up, my tongue felt like a foreign object in my mouth. I had to train it to be in the right place to talk and connect it with my brain."<br /><br />Jamie woke up one morning in December 2019 and noticed a bump on her tongue.<br /><br />Jamie says she was in "shock" after the diagnosis and days later found herself under the knife having half of her tongue removed.<br /><br />Unfortunately for Jamie, the removal of part of her tongue was not enough to give her the all clear and she had to undergo radiotherapy in April 2020.<br /><br />After finally being told she was cancer-free, Jamie's focus turned to recovery and learning how to use her tongue again.
