Marisha Dotson/Instagram
Brave US student Marisha Dotson has vowed to continue fighting after contracting a deadly form of cancer on her face.
The 28-year-old has lost parts of her jaw, eight teeth, nose tissue and skin and can only eat or talk with the help of a dental implant.
However, despite her devastating ordeal she has refused to give up.
“Cancer took my nose and parts of my jaw, but not my body so I will keep on fighting,” she declared.
Marisa is now sharing selfies with her social media followers – documenting and raising awareness of her journey.
Marisha first noticed a small red pimple-like dot on her nose had doubled in size and was beginning to hurt three years ago.
Worried she went to see a GP and scans later revealed it was a squamous cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer.
Undergoing 15 hours of surgery to remove layers of the cancerous tissue and most of her nose, Marisha thought she was in the all clear.
However the cancer struck again and this time deadly spots appeared on her lip, cheek and nose.
After radiation and more surgery medics discovered the tumour had spread and Marisha required parts of her jaw, eight teeth, nose tissue and skin to be cut away.
Last year she had a temporary dental implant fitted to fill the void left in her face, allowing her to smile, eat and talk again.
She was finally told she was in the clear again three months ago.
“I earned these scars and should be proud of them as they are a testament of my will to live, the blood, sweat and tears I shed to survive,” she declared.
“Early on, I made a decision that whatever pain I had to go through to live a little longer I would do and also I have a brother to take care of so I have to be around for him.”
She added: “I have to use a dental implant now, without it I can’t eat or talk because of all the missing bones in my face.
“The damage I have now I will live with for the rest of my life, I’ve given up on the cosmetic side of things and just feel so lucky to be alive.
“The odds of me surviving this form of cancer were very low as were the surgery success rates, I was given less than a 20 per cent chance of still being here today.
“But now I’ve had two tests to see if the cancer has come back and both are clear, which has given me hope so I’m very optimistic about the future.”
Marisha’s symptoms began in 2014, shortly after suffering from pneumonia, shingles and colds, which she initially put down to overworking to pay for her education.
Then when an unusual spot-like bump developed on her nose started to ache she sought out medical help.
Marisha said: “I went to my student health service who said they hadn’t seen anything like it and believed it was either a ‘weird form of acne’ or an infection.
“To me it looked like a regular pimple, it was slightly red and like a blemish, but after it continued to grow I knew it wasn’t a spot.
“It started to hurt, continued to swell and I started coming down with fevers, leading me to get help from a dermatologist who officially diagnosed the cancer.”
“My tumour was like a jellyfish with cancerous tentacles reaching deep into my face.
“After a couple of hours into surgery my reality shifted, the tumour was much deeper than surgeons thought and it was very painful.
“Despite having 300 shots of anaesthetic to my face it still hurt as they continued to cut and burn each layer, so close to my nerves and sinuses.”
Marisha has had her nose reconstructed using skin from her forehead.
“I could feel there was a part of my face missing but when I looked in the mirror I was devastated, I had this huge hole where my nose used to be,” she continued.
“Surgeons took skin from the crown of my head, shaved off a piece of hair and took the skin then flapped it over my nose and took cartilage from my ear.
“To keep the blood supply, they dragged the skin over my nose and it was left hanging off my forehead for a month.”
Devastatingly, after the surgery was complete doctors found more cancerous spots
“I went back into surgery to have them removed and came out looking like Frankenstein’s monster, they had to take so much out on my nose, nostril and lip that I needed skin grafts.”
Although she is now cancer-free, Marisha has been left with huge medical bills and has set up a Go Fund Me page in order to help clear her debt.
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