When Harriet Trewhitt first noticed a painful ulcer on her tongue, she chalked it up to an innocent mishap—surely just a bite during one of her epileptic seizures. Little did the 21-year-old acting student from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, know that this persistent sore would set her on a journey that would test her resilience, reshape her future, and, in a twist of fate, leave her with a tattoo in the most unexpected of places.
According to BBC News, Harriet’s ordeal began earlier in 2025 when the ulcer on the right side of her tongue refused to heal for about three months. Despite her initial suspicions, the lesion lingered, prompting doctors to order a biopsy. The diagnosis—stage two squamous cell carcinoma—arrived a month later, sending shockwaves through Harriet’s world. “I started crying and rang my dad. It was a lot. I’ve got my grandma who I am very close to and she was messaging me; ‘how was the hospital?’ I was staring into space, because I didn’t really know what to think,” Harriet recalled to the BBC.
Harriet’s life, already filled with the demands of drama school at LMA Drama School, was suddenly upended. But even in the face of cancer, she was determined not to let her hard work go to waste. She asked her medical team for a brief reprieve—just 10 days—to finish her drama course and avoid repeating the entire year. “Thankfully they let me finish drama school. That was on the Thursday (22 May) and I had my first operation on the Tuesday (27 May),” she told BBC News. During those short days, Harriet underwent a barrage of tests—MRIs, CTs, and more—to ensure she could safely undergo the lengthy surgery.
The operation itself was nothing short of remarkable. Surgeons at University College London Hospital spent six hours removing half of Harriet’s tongue and reconstructing it using skin and blood vessels from her arm. What makes her story particularly unique, as reported by The Mirror, is that the skin graft included a small semicolon tattoo—a symbol of hope, resilience, and mental health awareness. “They took out half of my tongue and then they took skin from my arm and the blood vessels from my arm and reconstructed it,” Harriet explained. “I had a small semicolon tattoo on my arm. And when they took the skin, they also took that as well.”
Harriet’s reaction to discovering her tattoo had migrated to her tongue was a mix of disbelief and humor. “It’s under my tongue but reachable. When I looked at it, I thought ‘I’ve got a tattoo on my tongue, this is crazy, how is this possible?’ It was all so unbelievable, so when I saw it I was surprised but also laughed at how crazy it was,” she told The Mirror. She admitted that humor was her coping mechanism throughout the ordeal: “I tried to stay very positive throughout the whole ordeal, because I felt that was the only way I could cope was making jokes. That was the best way for me to cope with it all.”
But not everything was a laughing matter. The surgery left a massive scar running from Harriet’s wrist to her elbow, a daily reminder of the price she paid for her recovery. “I wasn’t laughing though when I saw the state of my arm from where they took it from,” she told BBC News. “From my wrist all the way to my elbow, there’s a massive big scar, all the way down.” After her treatment ended in August, Harriet found herself missing her arm tattoo so much that she decided to have it redone on her other arm.
Unfortunately, the initial reconstruction didn’t go as planned. Just two days after her first operation, doctors discovered that the blood vessels hadn’t connected properly, and Harriet was rushed back into emergency surgery. “I had emergency surgery because the blood vessels hadn’t connected properly,” she said. Surgeons also had to repair damaged lymph nodes during the second procedure. The experience forced Harriet to relearn basic skills—talking and swallowing—skills that most of us take for granted. She worked closely with a speech and language team to regain her abilities, though she admits she’s been left with a slight lisp.
Her treatment didn’t end there. To ensure the cancer hadn’t spread, Harriet underwent proton beam therapy at The Christie Hospital in Manchester. This cutting-edge form of radiotherapy uses protons instead of traditional X-rays, targeting tumors with remarkable precision. Harriet described the experience to BBC News: “It was an incredible treatment. I had a mask that was moulded around my face and my chest that I wore every time I went in and it got like attached to a board and then this machine moved around me.”
Despite the grueling nature of her treatment, Harriet was determined to celebrate her academic achievements. She paused one day of therapy to attend her graduation, a milestone she wasn’t willing to miss. “If you looked at me I looked perfectly fine but inside I was in so much pain and I was so tired. I was like ‘I’m just trying to get through the day and see my friends and take pictures and have fun with them’. You can’t see the pain, but I can remember the pain afterwards, because I could barely eat at that point, I was in so much pain,” she shared with BBC News.
Harriet’s journey also took a toll on her confidence, especially as her face was severely swollen following surgery. She had already lost ten stone during her time at drama school, and the physical changes added another layer of challenge. But, ever the optimist, Harriet has set her sights on the future. She’s planning to begin a master’s degree in drama therapy at Derby University in 2026, all while continuing to audition for theatre roles.
Now cancer-free as of December 6, 2025, Harriet is back home and focused on recovery. “I’m a lot better. I do have a bit of a lisp. But apart from that, the tiredness is still a very big issue,” she said. “But as people keep saying, well, you only finished surgery back in August. So even though that feels like a world away, it’s actually not that long ago.”
Harriet’s story, however, is not just about her own resilience. She hopes her experience will inspire others to take their health seriously. “If you have an ulcer lasting longer go and get it checked because you don’t know what it could be and push to get a biopsy because you don’t want it to end up more serious,” she urged. And her message of hope? “It gets worse before it gets better and you come out of it stronger than you ever thought you would.”
From a drama school stage to the operating theater, Harriet Trewhitt’s journey has been anything but conventional. Her tattooed tongue may be a conversation starter on dating apps, but it’s her courage and positivity that truly stand out—a reminder that sometimes, the most unexpected scars can become the most meaningful symbols of survival.
