Coping with Facial Angiofibromas

July 13th 2010

These photos of Zoë show her at seventeen and eighteen. In the first one on a Eurocamp holiday, she is happy and relaxed and doesn’t seem bothered by her Facial Angiofibromas. This is a far cry from the four-year-old Zoë who had the traumatic experience of having her face paint removed by an anxious campsite children’s courier who thought she was having an allergic reaction, and the schoolgirl Zoë who had to bear the unkind remarks of other children and, the discomfort of some laser treatment. As she got older, she tried to cover the raised red marks with foundation, but found that it just emphasised them, so concentrated on emphasising her good points: her eyes and her lovely smile instead.

In the second photo the following July, she has been made-up for her sister’s wedding. Although she looks happy here, she would much rather have not had that gloopy foundation drawing attention to her skin.

During the subsequent years, she began to give up make-up altogether, helped by the beneficial effects of the medication she was taking for LAM on her facial rash.

‘Without make-up I feel liberated and genuinely beautiful despite my ever-present flaws,’ she wrote in her book. And she was.

This was a significant step on her journey of self-acceptance.