It started as toothache, but when they took the tooth out and took a biopsy
on the abscess it turned out to be cancerous. It was rather urgent because it
was spreading across the roof of my mouth. The surgeon cut around the nose and
up right underneath the eye. He pulled all that skin back and cut out the whole
upper part of my left jaw and right back to my ear and up to my eye. He had to
put a brace in under the eye so I wouldn鈥檛 lose it. Obviously I lost my left
nostril.
When they asked me if I minded being painted I thought it would be good for
me, and I thought it would be good for other people, to make them aware of what
can be done. During the painting I used Mark like a doctor, he was getting all
my little troubles. I鈥檇 tell him about things that weren鈥檛 right, then I鈥檇 get a
phone call from one of the surgeons and it would all be sorted out.
It was especially helpful with the radiotherapy. I had major problems with
that and with the mask I had to wear. I would tell Mark about the mask, how I
could hardly breathe out of it and how it came right down my throat. You鈥檙e
lying on your back and the machine starts up and you can feel a noise humming in
your ears and you can taste burning flesh and then you get the smell. It was
horrible. They gave me some tablets to calm me down. That happened every day for
twenty minutes for six weeks. I dreaded it.
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I wanted Mark to paint me in the mask because I felt the mask was an
important part of the process. When he did the painting I was standing up with
the mask on and I could feel the tension rising again. When I look at that
picture I say to myself, yeah, that鈥檚 how I used to feel, and it doesn鈥檛 bother
me at all to look at it. I鈥檝e got the mask at home. I couldn鈥檛 leave it at the
hospital. My grandson plays with it. He thinks it鈥檚 lovely.