Mum left with gaping hole in her face and breathing through her EYE after cancer ate away at her nose
Doctors were forced to cut away Ida's disease ridden nose after they discovered her stage four cancer had spread
A MUM has been left with a gaping hole in her face after cancer ate away at her nose.
Doctors were forced to cut away Ida Deslandes’s cancer-ridden nose after they discovered the disease had spread - leaving her breathing through her EYE.
Ida, who breathes through the small hole above her right eye socket, claims she was not warned she might wake up from her operation without a nose.
The 60-year-old underwent surgery to remove her eye cancer in March 2014 but it wasn’t until doctors were performing the operation that they realised her cancer had spread.
Ida didn’t know what her face looked like for five weeks following the op and when she finally saw her reflection she was “devastated”.
The mum-of-two, who lives with husband Randy, 58, in Smithville, Canada, has since had a patch of skin from her back attached to her face to cover the hole.
The pensioner has also undergone several ops to reconstruct her eye socket and nose since her diagnosis in November 2013.
“All I want is to have a face before I die,” Ida said.
“I had an 18 hour operation. I had not been warned I would lose my nose but they told my husband Randy following the surgery.
“It was five weeks before I looked in the mirror. I was devastated.
“I breathe through the hole in my head. I call it my blowhole.
“People do stare at me and they say horrible things. To them I’m a freak.
“We’ve had friends say that they can’t eat around me because my face makes them feel ill.”
Ida, who met Randy in 2000, is grateful her husband has stayed by her side.
“Most men would have walked away. But not Randy - we are in it together for the long haul,” she added.
“It is my dream to be able to look at my husband with both eyes and my whole face and to thank him for standing by me.”
Ida’s friend Sharon Williamson has set up a crowdfunding page to help Ida pay for surgery to reconstruct her face.
MORE ON CANCER
“Ida is desperate for a new face,” Sharon said.
“People stare. She feels the sting of the second glances. Some days she can barely look at her own self in the mirror.”
You can donate to Ida's cause at her
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