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32-year-old Noorkhi Bai is a mother of two children who has been, for the past three years, unable to kiss her husband because a massive lump on her face physically blocks her from doing so.
In the beginning, when the lump was first beginning to form on her face, it was innocuous. But over time, it expanded and didn’t show any signs of stopping.
Bai lives in a remote area of India with her family, so finding a doctor who would be able to properly and safely remove the lump was difficult and would cost their family a lot of money. But rather than choose to have the growth extracted, Bai chose to let the lump continue growing.
She didn’t want to use all of the family’s money on her surgery. If she used the money to have the surgery done, they would no longer be able to properly provide for their two young children.
“For us, the main challenge was to ensure two square meals a day for our kids and ourselves,” Bai explained. “This is why I have been tolerating all the humiliation and isolation caused by the lump on my nose.”
So Bai lived with her condition.
Even though she had agreed with her husband that she would endure her condition to provide better for their children, the persistent lump began to take a toll on their married life.
Her own husband refused to kiss her and talked to her badly. Everyone else in Bai’s village treated her like a social outcast to the point where she felt like she was unable to face the world without being judged ever again.
In January 2017, Bai finally went to the hospital to have her lump inspected. After so many years, it was beginning to cause her pain and she feared it would get worse and become a tumor.
Doctors at the state-run hospital, Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital, Indore, performed an operation on the lump to have it removed.
It was only then, after three years, that doctors finally diagnosed Bai’s growth as a sub-cutaneous soft tissue bulge mass lesion. In simpler terms, Bai had a benign lump of damaged soft tissue forming under her skin.
When the lump was finally removed, it measured 5 centimeters by 4.4 centimeters by 7.5 centimeters.
Bai remained in the hospital for a week to recover, but then insisted that she return home even though her scar hadn’t fully healed yet. For Bai, now that she’s completely normal and can interact more intimately with her husband again, she doesn’t have any spare time to remain at the hospital to recover.
She has to go back home to resume her role as a “multi-tasking housewife” and tend to her family.
Here’s what she looks like now.
