Docs built my new face from my LEG

dolls house. I was scared it would be my last Christmas with them and wondered if I should sit down and write letters they could open in the future.

“But the doctors were confident the tumour could be removed.” Last month he joined just a handful of people in the UK to have an operation which involved taking most of the fibula from his left leg and shaping it into a jaw bone. A specialist company in the USA had used 3D scans and X-rays of Rhys’ face to make a jaw hinge from precious titanium – a metal 30 times rarer than gold which is used as armoured plating in fighter jets. Maxillofacial specialist Muzzammil Nusrath led the operation at Sheffield Royal Hallamshire Hospital. After the tumour was removed along with the right side of Rhys’ jaw, Mr Nusrath used surgical nuts and bolts to form the new jaw line using bone shaved from his left fibula.

He also took vessels from Rhys’ leg and plumbed them in to his neck and face to give him sensation.

EXERCISE

Naomi says: “I was so shocked when I saw him after the operation that I fainted.

“He was hooked up to all sorts of machines and had a gash in his neck where a breathing tube had been fitted.

“He’s been through a lot and the whole thing has been very frightening for us, but he’s on the mend now thankfully.” Rhys, of Doncaster, was originally told he would not be able to feel his bottom lip, but he has been amazed to get some feeling back after his surgeon took a nerve from his leg and inserted it into his face.

He has to exercise his mouth every day to help widen his mouth over time and is still on six powerful pain killers after the operation left him in agony.

Rhys has also been left with a 15-inch scar on his left leg and has yet to regain sensation in his right ear or corner of his mouth.

But the courageous dad is just happy to be alive.

He said: “I’ve been told everything will calm down in time and the swelling will disappear.

“My face won’t go back to exactly the same symmetry as before, but it will improve over the coming months.”

Rhys, who lost two back teeth in the procedure, had his first taste of proper food 10 days ago after two weeks on a liquid diet, dropping almost 20 kilos.

“It wasn’t anything fancy – just lasagne but it tasted like the best thing in the world to me.”

He’s been through a lot and the whole thing has been very frightening for us WIFE NAOMI ON THE FAMILY’S ORDEAL

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