EXCLUSIVE: Love Island stunner Sophie Lee has opened up about her horrific health battle after she was burnt badly on her face and neck whilst working as a fire breather
Love Island star Sophie Lee has opened up about her harrowing health journey which saw her undergo chemo.
The ITV contestant, 29, is about to enter the villa and blow the lid of the place with her infectious personality and feel good energy.
But the performer turned motivational speaker has been through a lot after a life-altering event took place and scarred her.
Speaking to Daily Star and other press about her accident, Sophie told us: “I used to be a professional dancer and fire performer, and I was performing at a charity event, and they left the aircon unit on and it blew the fire and back into my face and set me on fire from the chest all the way up to just below my eyes. And I’m very lucky to be alive.
“From this burn, it actually escalated to become a keloid tumour. So when I was in England, they couldn’t find a diagnosis for me, it’s really hard.
“That’s when I became an international case study, because I found that in the world, that there was no cure in the world for keloid tumours.
“Surgeons from around the world were scrambling trying to find out the best way to deal with keloid tumour, they’re actually very common. Most people would get these from piercings, anything that’s an abrasion to the skin, but a bit further.”
Sophie then explained what the next steps were after doctors figured out what was going on with the aftermath of her burns.
The star revealed: “So I had a surgery called intralesional trial surgery, where they inject liquid nitrogen into the tumour, freeze it off. It falls off and new skin is formed. I had this twice. Then I went through stages of steroid projections to bring down any more sides of the scar because I didn’t want to perform surgery again.”
Sophie was left terrified after feeling as if she was a “guinea pig” as there was no guarantee of either success or survival due to the placement of the tumour being across her face and neck.
She added: “I was told that I was being a guinea pig, I basically signed my life over. There was no guarantee of success, of surgery or survival because of where it was. You know, there’s always a risk of surgery.
“Then the steroids stopped working, so then I had to have chemo. Now that was a huge hit for me, because I had chemo injections. So there’s loads of different forms of chemo, but I had 5Fu, which is a form of chemotherapy. It was injected into my tumour, and you know, that took it out of me.”
Sophie revealed it did heavily impact her dating life – but she is ready for the challenge now, and is looking to embrace a new partner in the ITV villa.
The influencer added: “So obviously, this whole journey will impact my dating life, because at some point in life, I’m not feeling sexy, I’m not feeling hot, I’m not feeling cute, I’m not feeling ready to talk about it, not feeling ready to have a partner. So probably at that point in life, I wouldn’t have been a good partner, which is why I didn’t want to date.
“Whereas now I’ve worked on myself. I’ve took time away from just embracing the trauma. Now I’m the motivational speaker. I feel like now I’m in a place where I’m ready to find my partner, find my person.”
Love Island kicks off Monday at 9pm on ITV2
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
