Losing face
First my looks went, then the love of my life
Looking at the eager faces gazing back at me, I strained to hear as they chanted the ABC.
For years, I’d been teaching English as a foreign language in Thailand with my husband Peter, 63.
We’d met when I was a flight attendant, and he worked for the same airline.
I’d always loved dressing up for the job.
And even at the age of almost 60, old habits die hard.
I never went anywhere without a slick of red lipstick and my hair neatly styled.
But, recently, I’d been struggling with the hearing in my left ear.
‘It’s so frustrating,’ I groaned to Peter that night.
Weeks later, we returned to the UK.
After a series of tests, doctors diagnosed me with an acoustic neuroma. They explained it was a benign tumour in the left side of my brain. Not life-threatening. But I needed to wear a hearing aid.
Only within a year, by January 2012, I was feeling tired all the time.
I had terrible balance, too, was constantly falling and dropping things.
I went back to the hospital for more tests...
‘I’m afraid the tumour has grown,’ confirmed my consultant after a CT scan. Of course I was terrified, but Peter was my rock. ‘We’ll get through this together,’ he promised me.
In October
2012, the surgeons removed the growth.
I had to stay in Intensive Care for five days.
When I finally sat up in bed, I asked Peter for my handbag.
And the very first thing I grabbed was my red lippy and a compact mirror.
But, as I peered into my mirror, I gasped in shock.
The left side of my face had completely dropped. It looked as if I’d had a major stroke.
‘Why is my face distorted?’ I sobbed, hysterically.
My doctor said the nerves in my face had been damaged during the operation.
It meant that I’d lost 50 per cent of movement from my face. My doctor said that it would get better, but it didn’t.
As the weeks went on, I struggled to even twist my mouth into a smile.
It really knocked my confidence and I stopped going out. ‘I’m so ashamed of how I look,’
I confided in Peter. Worst of all, I couldn’t open my mouth properly. I struggled to eat, or sip from a glass. My left eye didn’t close, either, and Peter had to help me tape it shut at night. ‘I miss the old me!’ I wept to Peter. To cheer me up, in December 2012 he took me on a cruise to Germany.
One night, we were seated with two other couples for dinner and, after a few minutes, one of the couples asked to move tables.
I was mortified – it was obvious my face had made them feel uncomfortable.
‘Let’s eat in our room,’ I begged Peter.
‘No, you’ve nothing to feel ashamed of,’ he said firmly.
Peter was my champion, and always knew the right things to say.
Eventually, we moved back to Thailand.
But, in August 2015, we had some devastating news.
After suffering from mood swings, Peter was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
And this one was deadly. For three months, I nursed him at home. Even when he stopped recognising me.
Three months later, my beloved husband passed away. We’d been married for more than 40 years.
The world I’d seen so much of suddenly seemed like a terribly lonely place.
I didn’t know how I’d carry on.
First, I’d lost my looks and now – far worse – the love of my life had gone.
Without Peter, life just didn’t seem worth living...
Peter’s funeral was in January 2016. Friends from all over the world came to say goodbye to him.
I scattered his ashes along his favourite walk in the New Forest.
Now living back in England, in the months that followed, I really struggled.
Not only was I grieving for my husband, I was also grieving for the woman I once was. I’d lost my identity. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I thought.
I’d never been on my own before and I was overwhelmed with fear for the unknown.
So, in an attempt to tackle my loneliness, I started an online blog.
I began documenting my struggles with grief and my facial deformity.
I joined a support group on Facebook and discovered there were others like me with the same condition.
Talking helped and finally, in April 2017, I was ready to share my life again. So I signed up with an online dating site.
The thought of putting photos of my less-than-perfect face online was terrifying. But I had nothing to lose.
A few months later, I met retired engineer John, 67. When I opened up to him about my condition, he was so understanding. ‘I can’t believe how much you’ve been through,’ he said.
Then one day, after we’d been seeing each other for a year, I was writing my blog when I spotted an advert for River Aesthetics.
It was offering a unique threading procedure that could literally lift my face using dissolvable threads.
The one-off procedure would take just 90 minutes and cost £1,500.
It’d need to be redone every three to five years.
I had savings – so I decided to go ahead.
Last November, surgeons at River
Aesthetics at
Canford Cliffs, in Poole, carried out the treatment. Afterwards, my face was incredibly swollen. However, when I went to apply my trusty lippy,
I could immediately see a massive difference.
‘My face finally looks symmetrical!’ I beamed.
I was left with two huge bruises on my face, though. And, when John came in to see me he gasped. ‘Wow!’ he said, staring at my face. ‘The bruises are awful, aren’t they?’ I frowned. ‘No, it’s not that,’ he grinned. ‘You just look so gorgeous.’ I cried tears of happiness and pulled my mouth into my old smile.
Now, every morning I get up, look in the mirror and see the old me smiling back. I know Peter would’ve loved to see me so happy. After so many years of hiding away, I can finally face the world again.
I look in the mirror and see the old me smiling back