HELP IS ON THE WAY

Aesthetic practitioner Dr Ansua Steyn, who has a show on VIA (DStv channel 147) called Dr Etter based on the US series Dr. Pimple Popper, has decided to help Melvin through her non-profit organisation, the Dr Ansua Foundation.

She’s helped nearly 30 people through her TV series but she wants to expand her offering via her foundation, gathering public donations, negotiating operating theatre time for free and using services from experts such as plastic surgeons to change people’s lives.

Dr Steyn heard about Melvin from one of the foundation’s first beneficiaries, Lelitha Jantjies, who was bitten in the face by a dog.

Dr Steyn invited Melvin to meet her at her office in Victoria Bay on the Garden Route.

She and a local plastic surgeon plan to stretch the healthy skin around Melvin’s neck and pull it up over his face to where the keloids are. The healthy skin should help the keloids to shrink, she says.

Salt water will be injected into Melvin’s neck every week “until he looks like a bullfrog”, Dr Steyn says, and the process will begin in early 2024.

Later healthy skin from Melvin’s thigh will be transplanted onto the affected areas.

Radiation will be used in a bid to stop the keloids from growing.

“For Melvin’s major surgeries, we’ll have to fly him to Johannesburg where the radiation will also be done,” Dr Steyn says.

Still, there’s a chance the keloids will return, the doctor warns.

Melvin is aware of this but if the procedure can bring hope to others like him, he’s willing to give it a shot no matter the outcome. “There’s a young guy with keloids here in George and he isn’t handling it as well as I am. We must help him,” he says.