NEWS: Canada
SEVERE TUMOR
A woman has her nose removed because of a tumor.

A woman revealed she had to have her nose removed after feel­ing pain while wash­ing her face, with doc­tors even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­er­ing she had a tumor.

Trish Haw­ley, 42, first noticed a prob­lem in the sum­mer of 2019, when she occa­sion­al­ly felt pain in her right nos­tril — the dis­com­fort steadi­ly increas­ing until she was in unbear­able pain.

Doc­tors ini­tial­ly thought her symp­toms were all due to an infec­tion and gave Haw­ley treat­ment. How­ev­er, they lat­er real­ized it was actu­al­ly a malig­nant tumor, first try­ing to treat it with radi­a­tion ther­a­py that did­n’t work, mean­ing they had to go with plan B: remove her nose.

Haw­ley, a pub­lic health inspec­tor from Huntsville, Cana­da, said, “I’m not a vain per­son and I don’t think much about appear­ance, I knew I was­n’t unat­trac­tive but I thought about what it would mean for my identity.

“But I was in so much pain at that point, I just want­ed it to go away.

“It was so bad when I went in for the surgery. The doc­tor looked at it and said, ‘The tumor is angry.

“I asked her if it was to remove my nose, already know­ing the answer, so she said yes.

“I start­ed cry­ing prob­a­bly for a good 10 min­utes and the whole time she com­fort­ed me. Anx­i­ety set in soon after and I was nau­seous and dizzy for a week.

Haw­ley began to notice the pain when she washed her face or picked her nose while get­ting dressed, but after things got worse, she went to see a doc­tor in Sep­tem­ber 2019.

She was told the pain was the result of a dry nose and thought it was “no big deal” because she does­n’t smoke, do drugs or drink heavily.

But antibi­otics and oth­er treat­ments failed to solve the prob­lem, and the pain only got worse.

Haw­ley was then referred to an ear, nose and throat spe­cial­ist, who was con­cerned that — while her sinus exam came back nor­mal — dis­cov­ered upon exam­i­na­tion that her nos­tril appeared to be com­plete­ly closed and that there was also a lump inside her nostril.

Believ­ing it to be a cal­ci­fied cyst or blood clot, the doc­tor told her he would give her an appoint­ment to remove it.

Haw­ley said, “At the appoint­ment, the doc­tor could­n’t get it frozen and end­ed up doing a biop­sy. I remem­ber him say­ing, ‘Wow, it’s a tumor.