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My nose was a sausage!

How could a spot become so hideous?


Published by: Laura Hinton and Lucy Laing
Published on: 25 October 2012

Oh my god, my earache was getting worse! ‘Book a doctor's appointment,' my boyfriend Dan, 39, said.
‘I will,' I groaned. ‘Sorry if I'm being grumpy...'
‘You're not,' he laughed, wrapping his arms around me.
For a minute, I forgot about all the pain I was in. Me and Dan had met five years before when he'd become the new delivery driver at the care home I worked for. It wasn't until four years later, though, that he'd plucked up the courage to ask me out. A month after that, he'd moved in. Life couldn't get much better. But for the last two weeks, I'd had this damn earache.
The next day, I went to see my GP, hoping he'd give me some antibiotics to sort me out.
‘It's this earache,' I moaned. ‘It's in both ears.'
But the doctor just kept staring at my nose. ‘How long have you had that scab there?' he asked.
‘Oh, this?' I said, scratching a lump that had sprung up by my nose. ‘Only a few months...'
It was the size of a ladybird and I'd just thought it was a spot. I couldn't stop scratching it but it would always come back.
‘I don't mean to panic you, but that could actually be skin cancer,' he said.
‘Seriously?' I gulped. He nodded, then arranged for me to have a biopsy. I left the surgery in a complete daze.
‘The doctor thinks I might have skin cancer,' I sobbed to Dan later that day.
‘Look, we'll get through this,' he reassured me. I was so grateful for his support.
A few days later, we were back at the doctor's getting the results.
‘I'm afraid it is cancer,' he said.
‘Oh my god,' I gasped, clutching Dan's hand. He looked as scared as me. Every inch of me wanted to bury my head in the sand. But I had to be strong for Dan and my three kids, Paul, 25, Lauren, 22, and Matthew, 15. They needed to know what was going on. Sitting them down one day, I told the truth.
‘You know that earache I've been getting?' I said. ‘Well, it's been caused by the pressure of a cancerous tumour. Don't worry, though - the doctors are going to cut it out.'
‘Oh, Mum,' Lauren gasped. ‘What's going to happen to you?' ‘Honestly, everything will be fine,' I promised, hugging her.
But after a simple operation to cut away the tumour, there was more bad news...
‘We've made another discovery,' my doctor said as
I recovered in bed. ‘There are two more tumours behind the one we took out. They'll need removing, too. We'll have to take away a piece of your nose to get to them, then we'll reconstruct it.'
My stomach flipped. They wanted to hack away at my nose! For now though, I couldn't focus on that, I had to concentrate on fighting for my life.
Over the next few months, I endured three more operations to remove the tumours. Each procedure took about five hours. I was always awake throughout and could hear them cutting through my flesh, sucking the blood away. It was like something out of a horror film.
‘Just think of Dan and the kids,' I told myself. Dan was always there, waiting outside, bless him.
During my fourth op, the doctors peeled off the skin, layer by layer, until there were no more cancerous cells left.
‘I feel like I've gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson,'
I groaned to Dan afterwards. The left half of my nose had practically been hacked off.
‘At least I can't smell the hospital food,' I croaked.
I felt bunged up and had to learn to breathe through my mouth instead.
‘We need to attach a large flap of skin to the side of your nose to encourage the blood to circulate,' the doctor said. ‘Then we'll use cartilage from your ear to rebuild the structure.'
But something else was niggling away at me. Dan had been my rock, but I felt guilty.
‘You don't have to stick around,' I told him one day. But he was shocked. ‘I'm here for the long run,' he said, hugging me tight.
‘Thank you,' I sobbed.
The reconstructive surgery was anything but easy, though.
Coming round from the first operation, I felt like someone
had whacked me in the face with a sledgehammer. And the horrible comments...
‘Can you draw the curtains around me please?' the girl in the bed next to me asked a nurse. ‘I feel sick looking at her.'
Blinking back tears, I wanted to curl up into a ball and die.
I had to know exactly what I looked like...
‘It'll be really bad at the moment,' a nurse warned. But nobody else had seen me yet. I had to know what they were letting themselves in for. When she brought a mirror over, my hands trembled as I held it up to my face. ‘Arrgh!
I have two noses!'
I cried. It looked like a sausage had been sewn on the side of my nose. Hundreds of jagged stitches zig-zagged their way up my face. They stretched from my jaw, across my nose and up to my hairline. I felt sick.
‘Take the mirror away,' I gulped. Later, when Dan came in to see me, I turned my head away. ‘Don't look at me. I'm too hideous,' I sobbed.
But suddenly, I felt his fingers gently cup my chin. Slowly, he turned my face so I was looking straight into his eyes.
‘You're beautiful, love,' he whispered. And in that moment,I believed him.
I still needed even more operations, though. And as surgeons gradually cut away at my nose, I didn't look like the same woman Dan had fallen for.
‘Beauty is only skin deep,' he'd say. ‘And besides, your nose is getting better each time. I'm going to keep a photo diary. That way, I can show you.'
After five ops, surgeons decided they'd done as much as they could.
‘I can't face anyone,' I grumbled to Dan. ‘I look absolutely disgusting.'
‘Look at this picture,' he said, showing me a snap from a couple of months before.
‘Well, maybe I do look a bit better now,' I admitted. And a few days later my mate Amanda, 50, turned up. ‘You're coming to the pub,' she said. ‘I've arranged for a few friends to be there.'
‘I can't,' I trembled.
‘We'll do it together,' Dan pushed. So, with their encouragement, I dragged myself along. I was nervous, but I knew most people and nobody gave me a second glance. For a few hours I totally forgot about what I looked like. It gave me the confidence to start going out more. But even popping to the shops was hard.
‘People are staring,' I'd whisper to Dan. ‘So what?' he'd shrug. And slowly his confidence rubbed off on me. Gradually, my nose began to heal, too. I left the house more on my own and learnt how to ignore the stares. Dan's photos were really working, too - I could see my nose taking on its new shape.
A year on from my cancer diagnosis, I was back at work. After a long day, I arrived home to find Dan popping out to get a bottle of wine. When he came back, he was all jittery.
‘I want an honest answer to a question,' he said, taking my hand. ‘Will you marry me?'
‘Of course!' I blubbed.
He'd proved his love for me so many times over.
Months later, we wed at our local registrar office. I felt like a million dollars in my black and white dress and only a tiny scar on my nose showed what me and Dan had been through.
Although it's been a bumpy ride, my cancer has made me appreciate everything good I have in my life.
After all, it's proved beauty really is only skin deep.
Deborah Willetss, 45, East Hunsbury, Northampton