Extract
from the article posted by Susan Donaldson James via Good Morning America
Jose Mestre's face was consumed by a
12-pound tumor, an explosive growth of blood vessels that blinded him in one
eye and invaded his mouth, making it difficult to breathe and nearly impossible
to eat.
Doctors in his native Portugal had given up
hope that they could operate on the 53-year-old former traffic guard, and
Mestre had resigned himself to the fact that he surely would die.
But thanks to the intervention of a stranger,
who had watched a plastic surgeon perform miracles on another patient with a
facial tumor on a Discovery Health documentary,
now Mestre is on the road to recovery.
Mestre's journey took him from Portugal
to St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago in
2010, where plastic surgeon Dr. McKay McKinnon performed three risky
procedures to save the man's face.
"It's an incredible story," said
McKinnon, who specializes in craniofacial surgery. "I
have not seen a facial tumor quite as dramatic as this ever… His face was a
mass of fiber and tumor and blood vessels that made him unrecognizable as a
human being."
Mestre had been born with a
venous malformation, also called a hemangioma, one that had begun growing uncontrollably
at the age of 14. These tumors typically increase in size during puberty and
his had begun to distort all of his facial features.
Eating was difficult, causing
bleeding on his tongue and gingiva, and Mestre's left eye was completely
destroyed as the tumor literally swallowed his face.
Helping Jose was complicated
by the fact that his mother was a Jehovah's Witness -a religious denomination that bans blood
transfusions- and she wanted her son to follow her faith.
"Jose would eventually be
forced to decide between death from complications of frequent bleeding from the
growing tumor, or renouncing his faith and receiving definitive surgery,"
he said.
But in 2008, Mestre's mother
died and his younger sister Edith, a hairdresser in her late 40s, became his
guardian and became more proactive in seeking medical care.
British
Tourist Saves Man With Facial Tumor
Mestre's fate changed when an English
tourist, who had watched documentaries about facial surgery at St. Joseph, saw
him on the streets of Lisbon. That stranger, known to doctors only as
"Peter," arranged an introduction by e-mail to McKinnon who examined
Mestre while giving a medical presentation in Portugal in 2008.
"Jose and his sister speak of him with
such reverence," said hospital spokesman Margo Schafer. "They call
him 'our angel Peter.'" Since then, doctors have had no contact with the
tourist.
In 2010, after much "prodding" by
his sister, Mestre arrived in Chicago for surgery. Even the government of
Portugal got involved, paying Mestre's medical expenses under its national
healthcare system, she said.
Jose Mestre's Tumor Will Not
Grow Back
Today, Mestre's post-operative
face looks much like a burn victim.
Mestre never wanted to leave
the house, but now he goes outside every day, singing. Although McKinnon deems
surgery a success, Jose has a long road ahead, especially psychologically.
"Despite how hard it may
be for some people to understand, anyone who has lived with something like this
for 40 years has a hard time letting go of it," he said. "And what
the future holds can be more anxiety provoking. He had been very anxious about
surviving the surgery and had been told by his doctors he would die. It was a
wrenching experience for him."
Still, McKinnon said the tumor
is not likely to grow back and Mestre's future holds promise.
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