A young Tongan girl with an enormous tumour on the left side of her jaw has had her face rebuilt by charitable Melbourne surgeons using the fibula bone in her leg.
Pulei Latu, 19, underwent radical surgery on Friday to remove the rapidly-growing benign tumour near her cheek – which was affecting her speech and had already deformed parts of her mouth and teeth.
‘Sometimes I look in the mirror, and yeah, I think it’s grown bigger,’ Ms Latu told 7 News before the surgery.
‘It’ll be good because they change mine (sic) to my normal face.’
The teenager’s life-changing surgery was sponsored by Children First Foundation, an organisation that helps children in serious medical need from developing countries.
It took five surgeons eight hours to reconstruct her face, with one team working on removing the bone from her leg and another team removing the tumour and resculpting her jaw.
Ms Latu, who has dreams of being an accountant, will spend the next week recovering in the general ward of Cabrini Hospital, Melbourne, before returning to Children First’s ‘Miracles Miles retreat’ for post-surgery care.
She will then fly home to Tonga to begin life without the physical and emotional trauma of a tennis-ball sized tumour stuck to the side of her face.