An American woman says she’ll “never French kiss again” after having half of her tongue removed and replaced with leg tissue after a cancer diagnosis.

According to Mirror UK, Jamie Powell, a 39-year-old special education worker, from Orange County, California, 39, was diagnosed with tongue cancer in March 2020 after discovering a raised bump on her tongue.

After undergoing tests, she 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.

She underwent the eight-hour operation in March that year 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.”

She then underwent 30 rounds of radiotherapy before being given the all-clear on June 30, 2020.

Jamie now hosts a podcast with fellow tongue cancer survivors talking about the reality of the disease.

Jamie said: “It was unbelievably sad when I realised I couldn’t kiss my husband, Jonathon, 40, again.

“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,” she noted.

“I cried about it. I was sad. I was sad for him too – that I wasn’t going to be enough.

“I didn’t even know you could get cancer of the tongue,” she added.