Harriet Trewhitt, 21, was just days from finishing her degree when she got devastating diagnosis
Harriet following on her surgery and now well on the road to recovery
An acting graduate is back on the stage after life-changing cancer treatment that involved removing half her tongue and reconstructing it with skin – and a tattoo – from her arm.
Harriet Trewhitt, 21, was diagnosed with tongue cancer in May and now has a semi-colon tattoo, once on her forearm, inside her mouth as part of her newly constructed tongue. Harriet, from Northallerton, is now backing a Cancer Research UK drive to fund more life-saving advances that helped save her life.
In December 2024, Harriet, an acting graduate from LMA Drama School in London, developed an ulcer on her tongue. When it didn’t heal and became increasingly painful, she visited her GP, who told her to see a dentist to have it examined.Harriet, who has epilepsy, said: “It was February and it had got really painful. To my surprise, the dentist sent me to A&E, where I was then triaged to the cancer centre.
“I couldn’t really believe what was happening. Things suddenly looked much more serious, and I could feel a sense of urgency in all the medical staff I met.”
Doctors took a biopsy of Harriet’s tongue and results showed she had stage 2 squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the tongue, a type of cancer that develops in the flat, skin-like cells in the mouth and advised treatment as soon as possible.
Harriet’s tattoo once on her arm is now in her mouth
Harriet said: “I was just ten days away from finishing university, so I pleaded with them to wait before I had to start treatment. I completed my last day of university on the Thursday and I went in for surgery to remove the cancer on the following Tuesday.”
During the six-hour operation at University College London Hospital surgeons removed half her tongue and reconstructed it using skin and blood vessels from her left arm. The tattoo that had been on her forearm was relocated to her mouth during the procedure.
Two days later Harriet needed surgery to repair the blood vessels, as well as some lymph nodes near her collarbone that had been damaged.
Skin was taken from Harriet’s arm to reconstruct her tongue(Image: UGC)
She said: “I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. It felt like one minute I’ve got an ulcer, the next I was having half my tongue removed. It was so much to take in, and because of the reconstruction I had to re-learn how to talk and swallow.”
While she was recovering, Harriet had to have a feeding tube fitted into her nose so that she could eat and get fluids as she was unable to swallow or chew food.
The surgery removed all the cancerous tissue but, as it was more aggressive than previously thought, Harriet needed to complete a course of proton beam therapy. Cancer Research UK funded the world’s first hospital-based proton beam therapy machine in 1989, which is still in use today, and also supported some of the world’s first clinical trials of the treatment.
Harriet Trewhitt needed a six-hour operation to reconstruct her tongue following cancer removal
Harriet said: “I feel very lucky that there were treatment options available to me like proton beam therapy.” And, she hopes her story will raise awareness of the breakthroughs in research, and credits Cancer Research UK with helping to give her a future and her voice back.
Now back home in Northallerton, Harriet is continuing her recovery and hopes to resume her plans to start a Masters degree in Drama Therapy in 2026. She said: “The hardest part for me has been adjusting to the impact it has had on my acting. I now have a bit of a lisp and swelling in my face and head, which has really knocked my self-esteem.”
Despite ongoing challenges, she recently returned to the stage in Northallerton Musical Theatre Company’s most recent production of Anything Goes. Cancer Research UK scientists laid the foundations for modern radiotherapy back in the 1920s and it is still used to treat more than 140,000 people every year in the UK.
Harriet said: “Cancer Research UK needs our support now. I understand this more than most, as decades of research helped develop the treatment I received. Advances like this wouldn’t be possible without vital funds.
“It’s hard to have had such a tough hurdle this early in my life. I would never want someone to go through what I have, but I’m grateful to have got the treatment I needed thanks to the work of Cancer Research UK.”
To donate to life saving research visit cruk.org/breakthroughs
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