I've Got A Toe In My Face

Doctors helped Hayley with an unusual idea.

- Hannah Abbott/Candice Fernandez

Hayley Dix, 30,

High Wycombe, Bucks

Standing in the corner of the playground, I tried not to cry.

But it got harder and harder as the bullies bombarded me with insults.

‘You look like a tractor ran over your face,’ one boy said.

That stung even more than the rubbers and pencils I regularly had thrown at me in the classroom by a gang of sniggering girls. 

It was too difficult to explain to them that I had Gorham’s disease, which was causing the bones in my face to vanish. 

So, instead, I stayed quiet. 

The debilitating disease was picked up after a routine trip to the dentist when I was 6. It was discovered that all the teeth in one side of my mouth were loose.

But it took five years of investigation by top consultants until I was finally diagnosed. 

By that point, I was in secondary school and the bone in my jaw was disappearing so quickly that my face had become seriously disfigured.

When I was 12, the bone in my jaw snapped and my face essentially caved in on itself. 

Unsurprisingly, it made me an easy target for bullies. 

As the name-calling got worse, I became more shy. 

Then, soon after turning 13, my medical team had an idea.

They wanted to amputate one of my toes,and remove some bone and arteries from my leg to try to reconstruct my face.

‘You want to use my toe?’ I gasped.