The diary of how doctors gave me my face (and my life) back
Her world was torn apart by a brutal acid attack that left her horribly disfigured. Now – f ive years, 70 operations and endless agonising skin grafts later – Katie Gee tells her remarkable story of triumph over evil
What started as the trip of a lifetime became the stuff of nightmares for Katie Gee in a single vicious moment.
the 18-year-old, from North London, had been volunteering at a school in Zanzibar when she and her friend Kirstie trup were doused in acid in an unprovoked and now infamous attack by two men on a moped. the results were horrific.
Kirstie suffered burns to her arm, but it was Katie who bore the brunt. the right side of her face and body were completely burnt while her right ear was left shrivelled, black and useless.
Yet five years on, almost to the day, her recovery has been nothing short of miraculous, as our photographs attest. and thanks to 70 operations – many of them gruelling 12-hour-long skin grafts – the dedicated care of medical staff and endless perseverance from Katie herself, her skin is almost completely smooth, the scars barely visible at all.
During the first three years after the attack, she had to wear a plastic face mask and full body compression suit for 23 hours a day and, last month, became the proud owner of a new right ear, masterfully sculpted from tissue from one of her ribs.
these details and more all form part of the extraordinary diary she shares today with the Mail on Sunday, charting her recovery from the day she arrived at the Chelsea and Westminster hospital.
today, the worst of her treatment is over, and the sociology student, who graduated from Nottingham University last year, wants to pay tribute to the extraordinary work of the health Service – and to highlight the sheer destruction caused by a type of attack which is growing increasingly common, particularly in London.
her assailants, who used acid from a car battery, have never been identified. ‘In the first few years I barely went out,’ Katie says. ‘I had no confidence. People would stare and it makes you feel ugly and different, like a spectacle. I’ve come such a long way in five years.’
AUG 8, 2013
There are no mirrors in the fifth floor burns unit at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital because patients like me can get distressed. And I can’t see anything out of my right eye. But using my left, I’ve been looking at my face in the selfie mode of my phone and at my reflection in the metal trim of the shower.
My face is swollen, much more than when I left Africa and my body has doubled in size.
Consultant plastic surgeon Andy Williams is brutally honest: I have 35 per cent burns and will need years of treatment. He said he won’t give up on me, though. He’ll try to get me as close as possible to the person I was before.
My family and grandparents are all here. They don’t try to sugarcoat anything either and I’m grateful. We’ll get through this together.
I don’t want anyone to hide anything from me. I know if I go home without seeing what I look like it will make it 20 times worse.
The first thing is to cut away the burnt, dead skin and then replace it with skin grafts. They ask to take skin from my scalp but my hair is the only thing I have left so I refuse, even though Andy says the colour match would be better for my face.
I’m relieved to be here but filled with trepidation.
AUG 9, 2013
I’m nauseous and sore after the first 12-hour operation and am on dozens of drugs, including ketamine. In all, I will have 15 operations – nearly three a week – and two to three blood transfusions because the body bleeds a lot with skin removal.
When it first happened I thought, ‘I’ll be in the best hands so it’ll be fine’, but now I’m in the best hands and it’s still bad. I don’t know how I’ll cope. The surgeons remove one section of the dead skin at a time and then apply donor skin to keep the wound from becoming infected.
They use skin from white, black and Asian donors all kept at -83C in a skin bank and put me on a cocktail of anti-rejection drugs. I look like a patchwork quilt! You have about two to three weeks before the body realises the skin is not a match but it’s only a temporary measure, like having a skin plaster. For the actual graft they take skin from my back, bum and both my legs and cover my arm and stomach first. My arm was a big job because it all needs covering.
They slice the skin off with a dermatome, a tool a bit like a potato peeler, and then make it thinner by putting it through a skin mesher machine which looks like a pasta maker except it cuts the skin like a fishnet stocking.
For areas like my face, the surgeons apply a layer of collagen, oddly, taken from the Achilles tendon of a cow and another protein from a shark. My own top layer of skin is laid over the top.
It was either stapled or stitched on and was horribly painful. Later, as it heals, it’s itchy.
AUG 10, 2013
I’m surrounded by food: chips and milkshakes from McDonald’s, cakes and Mum’s home cooking. I’ve been told to eat 5,000 calories a day – more than an athlete – because my body is working so hard to repair itself and needs to be robust enough for so much surgery. When you lose your skin everything leaks out, including protein.
I also have to drink chocolate flavour protein shakes, which taste quite nice. But I’m woken at midnight, 2am and 5am to drink, so they’re losing their appeal.
The nurses have been amazing, and many become friends.
In the beginning, one would sleep in my room overnight to make sure my heart rate was OK after major surgery.
My family are here most of the time and friends are forever popping in. My therapist always asks first if I’m up to seeing them. Some days I just don’t feel like it.
SEPT 23, 2013
I leave hospital with all my own skin but anxious about the next stage.
Mum is given a list of things to do if a wound opens or something starts bleeding. I’m surprised to find my bedroom at home in Hampstead, North London, filled like a florist’s shop, and there’s a card from Prime Minister David Cameron saying: ‘We’re going to do everything we can.’
I’m returning to hospital for physiotherapy every day and often wake up not able to move my arm because the skin has tightened. Luckily, it eases with massage.
My therapist asks me if I’m concerned about getting a boyfriend. I wasn’t until she brought it up.
It’s been hard to leave hospital. There, you’re so distracted; there’s always something to have done. Now I get home from my appointments and the hours drag on.
My family decide that a dog will cheer me up. Caeser certainly does that. I love going for long walks with him.
NOV 20, 2013
I’m fitted for a full plastic face mask at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, something I have to wear for 23 hours a day for the next two-and-ahalf years. This will make my
scars, which take up to two years to settle, as flat as possible. I’ve been really excited to get the first mask because it means I’m that much further on in my treatment, but wearing it is as horrible as it sounds: it’s unnatural, so restrictive and the pressure of the straps gives me migraines.
I just want to smash it on the floor, but I don’t because it took a month to make from the plaster of Paris moulding stage to the finished article. It’s such a relief to take it off to eat and to shower but I’ve barely been out of the house.
People stare and make me feel ugly and different. If I have to go out in it, I wear a thick woolly hat and scarf to hide as much as possible, even in the heat.
Every time I have surgery on my face, I have a new mask made and fitted.
I’ve also been wearing a full compression suit for 23 hours a day. Made from neoprene-like material, it comprises a tight black top, leggings and a glove, rather like a catsuit overall, so not a complete fashion disaster, but it’s so hot to wear, especially at night.
I’ve been told I must wear it for three years to help flatten the scar tissue as it settles and must get a new suit made every six to eight weeks. Chelsea and Westminster has its own seamstress who makes them all. You can choose from a range of colours but I went for black. I’ll save a fortune on clothes.
DEC 11, 2014
An important operation on my face: the scar from the skin graft between my nose and upper lip has contracted so much that my lip is fused to my nose. It’s so uncomfortable and I dribble when I drink.
Both my nostrils have closed over, one completely, and I can’t breathe well at all. Now it will be corrected: I’ve longed to get this surgery done.
The surgeons cut both layers of skin from my groin, so much in fact that it won’t grow back and I’ll need several corrective operations, but a scar there doesn’t really matter.
Andy, the surgeon, put a splint in one nostril to prevent it from clos12-hour ing over completely but it didn’t work and I’ve since had five operations to rebuild it.
First they attach skin before reinforcing it all with cartilage from one of my ribs.
I also have an eyebrow graft with Greg Williams at Farjo Hair Institute in Harley Street, London. He takes a chunk of skin from the back of my head and then painstakingly applies each hair in a ten-hour operation. The hairs still grow, but plucking is a bad idea...
JAN 30, 2015
After the attack, my right ear looked like a lump of charcoal. Andy Williams had tried to scrape the burnt parts away but, because there was no blood supply, the ear snapped off!
I could have had a prosthetic one fitted, but I don’t like the idea of taking it off every day to clean it and it won’t help my hearing, which has been badly damaged.
Andy recommends David Gault, a private reconstructive plastic surgeon and absolute genius whose hobby is sculpture. There are three operations. In the first he breaks a rib and sculpts a new ear from the cartilage. They also shave a section of my head, cut a flap open and pull it down over the new ear. The flap still has a blood vessel attached, which starts pumping blood to the organ to keep it alive.
Having a broken rib is excruciatingly painful and really affects my breathing. You can’t move without pain but I can make myself deal with it. It wasn’t as painful as the attack itself – nothing ever will be.
In the third operation David attaches skin from my leg to the ear and pins it to my head – I can’t put my hair behind it now. It’s rock hard, I can’t bend it but it works like a normal ear and my hearing is almost better than before. I’ve currently got a stitch through the lobe to create a hole for an earring. It’s the little details that mean so much.
TODAY
Thanks to the amazing medical team, I’m feeling incredibly positive and looking forward to getting on with ‘normal’ life – for me, normal is quite exciting.
Despite all the operations and disruption, I graduated from Nottingham University with a 2:1 in sociology last year. I’m enjoying life at home in Hampstead with my parents and two brothers – and Caesar – and will begin a graduate traineeship in corporate property next month. I still have to look at my scars every day, but they’re a part of me now and I’ll never be ashamed of them.