Help me regain my old look
My face is a sign of struggle. Please, help me get my previous look back. My goal is to have my face surgically reconstructed after neoplastic disease. You can’t even imagine what kind of fear and pain you feel when you hear that you will lose half of your face unless you experience it yourself. Nothing will seem to be the same. Nobody is able to understand how much fear and pain is inside you for a few days after the surgery, when you can’t recognize your own reflection in the mirror. All the doctors concentrated on was to save my life and not what my looks will be, which I understand and appreciate. Osteosarcoma – it was my fate. It’s difficult to find suitable words which could describe my fear then, how terrifying it was. In one moment, I lost everything that was normal and then everything has started to be crazy, painful and bad. My name is Kamil. I am a second-year student at the University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Wrocław. In August 2011, I started oncological treatment of my left maxillary sinus tumor. I was fighting for 2 years, knowing that I can lose everything. Oncology is thought-provoking and changes human’s personality for ever. Sometimes it gives you a kick to win. First, severe chemo - I don't remember how many times the doctors were forced to change treatment before it started working. My only wish was to make the therapy work. Without the therapy nothing could have succeed. The crucial point is to apply the appropriate chemotherapy, which finally can stop the cancer and force it to retreat... The next step is sustain chemo, and six months of uncertainty if everything is going to be okay. Life in this kind of tension is exhausting. The day of the operation was a day your new life. On May 28, 2012 at the Czerniakowski Hospital in Warsaw, doctors removed the tumour together with its margin. I looked terrible, but I live and nothing more matters. Oncology teaches one thing – so as to live at all costs. Three years after that day, the doctors decided that something had to be done with my face. Remove the sign of what is bad, so that the memories do not come back every time I look in the mirror. The reconstruction operation was aimed at transplanting a hip bone in place of a craniofacial bone defect. The surgery improved the appearance of the face, but it did not fix everything. It is impossible to return to the previous life. The pain and the fear will stay forever, but I have to keep fighting. There will come a day when I have to go to work, meet new people who don't know my story. I need to have my nose, teeth and mouth improved. I would like to avoid people’s eyes. It would remind me of the worst moments of my life. I wish I could lead a normal life without the fear of looking in the mirror every day. Collecting such a huge amount of money without any support is impossible. I can stay with such a face or do something about it. I'm asking for a chance to get my life back, before the cancer treatment. The only purpose is to not see the pain and everything I have been going through and fight against the most serious illness. Kamil