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| Aged 3 |
Published for the first time, they show in astonishing detail how the skill and dedication of a team of pioneering surgeons transformed the horribly disfigured features of tumour-ravaged Pascal Coler.
And Pascal tells his moving story to the News of the World through normal lips he once thought he would never have...
He talks about his escape from a nightmare of deformity—and his hope of finding LOVE for the first time at the age of 30.
Pascal says: "The operation has revolutionised my life. I can live as a normal human being for the first time. People in the street look at me very differently. They no longer stop and stare or shout cruel words.
"Instead I am accepted. I even dream of myself in my new face—and now I would love to find a wife, settle down and have children."
He spent 24 YEARS horrifically disfigured by Von Recklinghausen's disease, a rare genetic disorder suffered over 100 years ago by Elephant Man Joseph Merrick—famously played by John Hurt in the hit movie.
Pascal was left unrecognisable by hideous bulbous tumours that engulfed his eyes, nose, and mouth with boil-encrusted, ulcerated skin.
And it took 16 DRAMATIC HOURS in an operating theatre to give him back a life he had not known since childhood—with the help of another human being's face and the skill of leading French surgeon Laurent Lantieri.
Read the rest on News of the World.