My nose ate itself!
Thursday 12th June 2008
I was parked outside Tesco, trying to talk myself into doing the weekly shop. I'd been all set to go in, until I caught a glimpse of my face in the rear- view mirror.
It's not that I was vain, but I was used to looking my best. My job as a course leader for a beauty therapy class at Chichester College meant I had to be immaculately made-up each day. But today, I knew the second I stepped through those automatic doors, I'd be turning heads for all the wrong reasons.
Why? Well, because my formerly-cute button nose had eaten itself away, and was now a gory mess. Yes, that's right. It had literally eaten itself. And with it, my confidence had been eaten away, too.
It had all started back in November 2006. I was doing my make-up one morning, when I noticed what looked like an enlarged pore on my nose. When I peered closer, I saw a tiny hole to the right of my nose stud. When I got it checked out by my doctor, he said it was just a cyst, and prescribed antibiotics.
But they didn't shift it, and back at the GP five months on, in April 2007, there was bad news.
'It looks like Basal Cell Carcinoma,' he said. 'A type of skin cancer.'
Cancer! In terrified silence, I listened as he told me that while this type of cancer wasn't fatal, I'd still have to be referred to St Richard's Hospital, in Chichester, to have it cut out.
'I don't understand it,' I cried to my husband, Paul Fisher, 33, when I got home.The main cause of this cancer is the sun, but I'd only used sunbeds a handful of times. I sunbathed sometimes, but I wasn't exactly a sun-worshipper. But a biopsy, two weeks on, confirmed it was cancer, and on 11 June 2007, I was admitted to St Richard's for surgery.
'We're going to cut the cancer out,' the surgeon explained. 'Then we'll take a flap of skin from your right ear and graft it over the hole.'
But how would I look afterwards?
I know it sounds vain, but your face is the first thing people see, and I was only 32. More to the point, who's ever seen an ugly beauty therapist?
When I came round an hour later, my nose was held together with a piece of bright blue sponge. I tried to keep a low profile until the sponge was removed two weeks later. When it came off, there was a scabby dent, the size of a five-pence piece, on the right side of my nose. And now, I was cowering in the car park of Tesco, trying to talk myself into popping in for a loaf. Well, I couldn't put it off forever.
Taking a deep breath, I put my head down so my hair covered my face, and braved it. Needless to say, people gawped at me anyway. Just don't make eye contact, I told myself, as I tried to ignore them.
'You're still gorgeous to me,' Paul said back at home.
'Yeah right,' I sighed.
I'd never been one to sit in, and I didn't want to start now. So, as difficult as it was, I made myself promise to keep going out. I forced myself to nip to the high street to do a bit of shopping, and I even took my daughters, Coral, 11, and Jade, 7, to their school sports day.
'What's wrong with your face?' one of the kids gasped.
I had to smile. At least he was asking, rather than just staring.
But as well as the stares, there was something else worrying me.
'It's really itchy,' I told Paul.
And the spidery red veins around the wound looked exactly the same as they had before the operation. Back at St Richard's, on 3 July, my worst fears were confirmed.
'They didn't get it all,' the consultant told me.
My heart sank. The cancer was still eating away at my nose.
'What now?' I asked, biting back the tears.
'You have three options,' he explained.
With the first two — repeating the procedure I'd had, or radiotherapy — doctors couldn't guarantee they could totally get rid of the cancer. Then, there was the gruesome option.
'It's called Mohs surgery,' my doctor explained. 'The surgeon will cut away gradually at your nose, testing each piece for cancer, until only healthy skin remains.'
There was no telling how much of my nose would have to be cut off, but I'd be given cosmetic surgery the following day.
'OK,' I said, feeling numb with shock.
I was put on the waiting list for treatment at St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth.
I tried to get on with things, even carrying on with work, but worry nagged away at me. I spent hours scrutinising the dent in my nose.
'It's getting bigger,' I said to Paul one night. 'I know it is.'
By September, it had taken over my whole nostril. I started to panic that my entire face would be swallowed up before my appointment came through.
When I went for the consultation at St Mary's that month, the specialist agreed.
'This can't be left,' he said, making me a rush appointment.
So, a month later, at 8am on 29 October 2007, myself, Paul, and my sister, Paula, 37, sat in the waiting room at St Mary's.The surgeon talked us through the procedure.
'We'll give you a local anaesthetic in your nose, cut away a slice of the flesh, then cauterise the wound and cover it with a bandage,' he said.
The flesh would then be given to another doctor, who'd be ready to test it for cancerous cells.
'If they find any, you'll be brought back to have the procedure again,' he explained.
Sure enough, as the day went on, I was called back again and again.
'I don't know how much more I can take,' I said to Paul at 2pm after my fourth mini operation.
It went on so long, the cleaners arrived and started mopping the floor around me. Finally, at 7pm, after nine long, painful hours, seven operations and 90 injections, I heard the words I'd been waiting for.
'You're cancer free,' the surgeon smiled.
Relief was an understatement, but even then, my happiness was tinged with worry. What would be left of my nose? Looking in the mirror, I saw for myself.
'Oh my God!' I gasped.
I'd lost the whole of my right nostril, and in its place was a bloody, gory mess.
It's just for one day, I told myself, trying not to freak out.
The next day, surgeons at the Royal Haslar Hospital, Portsmouth, rebuilt my nose, using skin from my cheek and my arm. When I came round from the operation, my nose was covered by another flesh-coloured sponge, and I had a scars on my right bicep.The mark on my right cheek was hidden by the creases around my mouth when I smiled.
'That's a good way to remember to be cheerful,' I said to Paul.
But when I could remove the sponge, 10 days on, I winced as
I saw a giant, crusty scab.
'Will I ever look normal again?' I gulped.
'Come on, you,' Paula said, when she popped round. 'You can't hide away indoors. We're going out shopping.'
Walking arm-in-arm down the high street, I could see people staring at me, but I refused to let it get me down. And in bed that night, Paul snuggled up close to me and put his lips to mine. Who could feel down, with support like that?
In April this year, I had my second bout of cosmetic surgery, placing cartilage from my ear into my nose to give it more shape. And so, finally, I seem to be getting there. I can't wait to get back to work and stop being stared at all the time. OK, so I don't exactly look the same any more, but thanks to skin grafts and make-up, I'm starting to look normal again. And better still, my nose no longer has the munchies.