Pics shows: Xiao Yan;
A young woman born with a huge mole covering half her face now has four egg-sized devices under her skin as she receives life-saving treatment to grow new tissue.
Xiao Yan, 23, suffers from congenital melanocytic nevus, a type of birthmark that affects about 1 percent of infants worldwide, and her crucial tissue expansion surgery is the only way to prevent her mole from becoming malignant.
Things will also have to get worse before they can get better for the young woman from rural Longjing Village in Guizhou Province in south-western China, as her face now balloons in the four places where expanders have been surgically inserted.
The treatment, which is being done at the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital in East China, was deemed crucial after her facial mole began hurting last March and medics warned of potential cancer cell growth.
She had otherwise been prepared to live with the massive mole on her face for the rest of her life, but doctors have since promised her a "new face" in the near future by replacing her affected areas with newly grown skin.
"Despite the big black mole on my face, I enjoyed my childhood playing with my friends," Xiao said, adding: "I was carefree."
"But as I grew older, the fact that I was ‘different’ became increasingly magnified," she added.
Her mum Yang Xiu’e said she had to "beg" the villagers to stop making fun of her daughter, who became the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.
Following recommendations from doctors last year, Xiao’s poor family managed the wholly improbable task of raising 100,000 RMB (11,177 GBP) for the first stage of her treatment in Shanghai, which began in October.
Doctors planted expanders in her face and now still inject saline into the devices twice a week.
"During the first month of treatment, my face hurt so much because of the egg-sized expanders and the saline injections that I wanted to slam my face into a wall," Xiao said.
Her treatment will continue f
