• March 28, 2024

Teacher Finds Black Spot On Her Nose But What It Turns Out To Be Is Even More Shocking

A woman with a spot on her nose was horrified to discover she had cancer – and was forced to undergo a series of drastic operations to have a new nose fashioned from her scalp. Bree Towner, from Edwardsville, Illinois, discovered the small blemish on her nose in January 2013 but was initially told by medics it was not cancerous. But two years later the it had grown to the size of a pencil eraser, and Ms Towner was told she had basal cell carcinoma, a common skin cancer.

As a result, she underwent three major operations to fashion a new nose from her scalp, and was given more than 100 stitches.
But the 28-year-old was left with horrific scars, and was forced to shave the end of her nose – leaving her on the brink of suicide.
While Ms Towner, a trainee teacher, is now free of cancer, she has been warned it may return in the future.

When she first noticed the spot on her nose on January 7 2013, Ms Towner thought nothing of it.
She certainly didn’t think it would be the start of a two-year-battle with a life-threatening disease.
She said: ‘It looked just like any other zit I’ve had before. But after a few weeks then a few months, it never healed. It just kept getting new scabs.

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‘I still didn’t really think too much into it though, as I didn’t know that was a sign of skin cancer.
‘So that summer I moved to central Florida and that meant I repeatedly tanned at the pool and the beaches all summer long.’
After making the move back to her native Illinois in August 2013, Ms Towner scheduled a dermatologist appointment for April 2014. There, her nose was frozen and a scrape biopsy was performed.

She was relieved to be told the growth was not cancerous, and she was prescribed a topical ointment for a bacterial infection.
However, just seven months later, the spot had ballooned to the size of a pencil eraser and she was urged to make another appointment with a skin specialist. And on January 28, she was handed the devastating news that she had infiltrative basal cell carcinoma.

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his is a growth in the skin’s basal cells, which line the deepest layer of the epidermis (the outermost layer of the skin).
She went under the knife for six hours on March 5 to remove the growth.
Doctors at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St Louis, Missouri, were forced to take skin off her nose four times to remove all the affected cancer cells.  The following day, she began facial reconstruction treatment at the medical facility, where surgeons created a new nose, using a surgical procedure called the paramedian forehead flap.

The operation involved fashioning a new nose from flesh from her scalp and attached to her forehead so it had a steady blood supply. It was then stitched over her old nose, and she dubbed it her ‘arch’.
Then, a month later on April 9, after being told she was cancer-free, she had another operation to remove the excess skin and stitches, to unveil her new face.

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She still faces the ever-present threat that her ‘nose flap’ will be rejected, and said the whole experience has severely damaged her self-esteem. She said: ‘I had dealt with minor bouts of self-esteem issues, depression, and anxiety before my diagnosis from just the stress of life. ‘But after surgery I was suicidal. I never attempted it, but the thoughts were there daily between February and July. ‘I am also seeing a counsellor once a week for 30 minutes each time.
‘Throughout the process, while being in public, I’ve seen many people staring out of either rudeness or curiosity, which was a major part of the mental health issues.

Read more at Daily Mail 

 

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