A MAN was left with a huge hole where his eye used to be – after his only cancer symptom was a watering eye.
Daniel Jackson, 43, started to feel his eye was irritated but didn’t think much of it.
Two months on, after his eye had not stopped watering, he went to the GP.
His doctor gave him eye drops and antibiotics to try and ease the problem, but it didn’t help.
Eventually, months on from first feeling the issue when he was 34, he went for a scan and doctors found a large tumour growing behind his eye.
Daniel had developed cancer of the ethmoid sinus – with the watering eye caused by the tumour pushing against it.
He had to have his eye removed to survive, and underwent an extreme operation and then radiotherapy – which left him with massive facial damage.
Doctors had been forced to not only remove his eye, but also extra tissue from around the area, which meant his face had been hollowed out so much his tongue was visible.
Daniel went through extensive reconstructive surgeries, which closed the open hole on his face, but left him with severe facial scarring.
Now he uses his experience to campaign to raise awareness for people with facial differences.
He works with several charities to highlight poor representation of people with facial scarring and wants to increase acceptance for people who look different.
Daniel said: “They say you should always see your GP if you feel there is something not quite right, and I was a young strong male who frankly didn’t have the patience to see my GP about my irritated eye.
“A simple everyday body defect which normally clears up on its own continued for some time, until I did, only on reflection do I feel there may have been a chance to avoid the consequences, but I will never know.
‘BURIED IN MY FACE’
“What I can tell you was my utter disbelief when some months later I was sat in the hospital being shown the scan results which showed a huge tumour which was growing inside my face.
“I came to find the answers as to why my innocent watery eye was not stopping, instead I left a dead man walking.
“My cancer was located in one of my sinuses, buried within the face. It was allowed to grow without check. My watering eye was the only symptom caused by the growth pushing from behind the eye.”
He added: “Radiotherapy had a devastating effect on the soft tender skin on my face, and slowly the stitched-up areas opened back up and I was left with a huge hole in my face.
“This hole was unlike anything you could imagine because they did not simply remove the eye, they took the huge tumour and everything around it as well.
“My face had been hollowed out to the extreme that I could look in a mirror and see my tongue moving.
“I asked for a drastic reconstruction. I wanted my life back. Hospitals had become my world for almost a year, this operation should provide the solution I hoped for.”
Daniel began working with UK charity Changing Faces, to combat the stigma around people with facial scarring.
Their ‘I Am Not Your Villain’ campaign is against representing villains as people with facial disfigurements.
Daniel, from Margate, said: “An amazing future awaits our next generation if we learn to be kind, non-judgemental, and accepting of differences.
“I am now happy with the way I look. I have made peace with the fact I can never look the way I once did, but I won’t let it stop me living my second chance of life.”
