Lessya Kotelevskaya was 19 years old when she was accidentally hit in the jaw during a basketball game in her native home Kazakhstan. The persistent swelling in her jaw convinced doctors that it was a cancerous tumor and had her undergo radiation treatment.
It took several years but Kotelevskaya eventually learned that the doctors were wrong with their diagnosis but the radiation treatment already caused a hole her right cheek that disfigured her face and affected her ability to talk and eat.
Kotelevskaya, however, may now have a chance to live normally again as a hospital in Kentucky is footing the bill for a $1 million worth of surgery to reconstruct her face after one of its doctors learned of her plight and offered to help.
On Monday, plastic and reconstructive surgeon Jarrod Little, from the University of Louisville Hospital, started Kotelevskaya's major reconstructive surgery, which is anticipated to last 24 hours or longer.
In a Twitter post, UofL Physicians, which has been posting updates on Kotelevskaya surgery, said that the operation goes smoothly and may even end sooner than expected. "Lessya's surgery is going well, and may end earlier than expected. We will be posting an update in the morning. #Hope4Lessya," the tweet reads.
The disfigurement caused by the radiation treatment did not just cost Kotelevskaya her face. Her husband also left her in 2007 after she became pregnant with her son Erik, who is now 7 years old. The clothing store she and her husband managed together was also forced to close and Kotelevskaya had to do menial jobs that she did during the night such as cleaning gyms and carrying sand to people's doorways during winter to avoid getting stared at by strangers. Life became so hard for Kotelevskaya that she had to live in a car wash at one point.
Things, however, took a turn, when Kotelevskaya's cousin, Oleg Sennik, who moved to U.S. in 1996 and is now an American citizen, tracked her down two years ago and urged her to seek help in the U.S. In July 2013, Kotelevskaya arrived with her son Erik in Kentucky.
"She has waited for this day for many, many years," Sennik told the Associated Press. "She just wants to be a normal person."
Kotelevskaya will spend three weeks in the hospital to recuperate. The first three days after her surgery, however, is very critical as there is a possibility of stroke that can undo the reconstruction.
