A Kiwi mum has had to have some of her skull cut out after a pimple turned out to be cancer. Photo / Supplied
WARNING: Graphic
A 20-year-old New Zealand mum saw her tiny acne turn into a giant pimple on her forehead overnight, and says she instantly thought there was something wrong with it.
Jorgia Robson, a Kiwi living in New South Wales, told Kidspot she knew straight away that pimple, the size of a 50 cent coin, was more than just a blind pimple.
She then started suffering from migraines that she says "wouldn't stop".
"I had trouble breathing and my chest and arms began hurting all of a sudden."
She visited her GP who said he lump was an infected "blind pimple".
She was sent home with antibiotics but the pimple - and the pain - continued to grow.
The doctor eventually sent her to get an ultrasound. That's when Jorgia's life, as she knew it, changed forever.
"I got the scan and they knew immediately that it was abnormal cells," she recalled.
Jorgia was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a rare cancer in adults that compromises the immune system to the point where the skull bone gets eaten away.
A number of scans and four bone biopsies in just a few days showed the disease had caused a three to four centimetre hole in her skull.
She's had to get part of her skull cut out and surgeons had to fill part of it back in with plaster, in a craniotomy and cranioplasty.
She now has a dent in her forehead and 23 surgery staples, where the giant pimple used to be.
The Kiwi mum says, aside from the physical pain of the recovery, the fact that she can't work or care for her two-year-old son Hunter adds to the strain the cancer has put on her life.
Her family has set up a Gofundme campaign to raise money to help her.
Her mother, Tricia Kirt, explained on Gofundme that, because the family is from New Zealand, they do not qualify for government-funded healthcare or government pensions in Austalia.
According to an update by her mum, it has now been four weeks since Jorgia's surgery and she is "doing okay".
However, the nightmare isn't over.
"She has had her follow-up checkup with the neurosurgeon and unfortunately he has said it will definitely come back," she explained.
"Jorgia is also having a few other health issues with her lungs and is in need of extra tests to see if the cancer has traveled as it's known to. She will have X-rays and another PET scan."
Let’s take a look at the science.