OF HORROR
She told me to stay in because her son was scared of the ‘monster’. It made me think my own son would be scared of me too.
“Everyone was telling me I looked fine, I looked beautiful, but I couldn’t see. I decided to take my own life to stop scaring people.”
Thankfully her carer found her in time. Shalita never made it back to Uganda, but in 2005 she was reunited with Junior, who was flown over to the UK with help from her church.
“They got in touch with my family in Africa, who thought I was dead,” says Shalita, who now lives in Croydon. “By now, Junior was six.
“I was terrified he wouldn’t accept me because of the way I looked. I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. He couldn’t speak a word of English. But he adapted so quickly, I was very proud of him.”
By then she had met partner Ahmed, 70, a retired chef and charity volunteer.
“Ahmed used to come in and give me counselling and cook me African food,” she says. “He’d sit with me through the night because I was in so much pain. I wondered what he wanted, my face is so disfigured. But he told me, ‘Shalita, you have a beauty in you. These are just scars.”
The couple have children Shannan, 12, and Ariz, four. Junior, now 19, is studying business at university. “Shannan always tells me I’m beautiful,” says Shalita. “And Junior is protective. If somebody says something unkind he tells me, ‘Never mind, they’re jealous of you’.”
In 2011, Shalita, whose right eye had been removed, had a pioneering seven-hour op on her left one at Moorfields. “Before I was completely blind,” she says. “I had ‘spiritual eyes’, where I would imagine what my friends would look like. When the consultant took my bandages off, I saw the shape of him and the colour of his shirt. I jumped off the chair and screamed.”
Shalita cried tears of joy when she saw Shannan for the first time – and caught her first glimpse of Junior since he was a baby. But then she saw her own scarred face in the mirror.
“I started crying,” she says. “I was a beautiful girl – it was hard seeing how disfigured I was.”
She had cosmetic work from Finishing Touches ( finishingtouchesgroup.com), including semi-permanent make-up, medical tattooing and digital skin rejuvenation – and is now a model for the firm.
“When I started treatment I was unsure,” she said. “But I’ve been given so much confidence. I’m happy to walk in public now.”
Shalita now plans to be a support worker. She says: “I finally accept myself. By telling my story I can empower others, give them hope. I can tell them I believe in them, too.”
The consultant took off my bandages, I saw shapes and colours and just screamed Shalita Kyomuhendo ON OP THAT RESTORED HER SIGHT