Jayne Hardman’s nose issues began in 2012 when her mastiff jumped up and accidentally hit her in the face. She wound up having a lot of nose bleeds and noticed that her nose soon began to swell. It turns out that Hardman was diagnosed with vasculitis, a rare disease where the immune system attacks blood vessels, causing swelling and eventual organ and tissue death. “If you don’t get treated, you’re dead within a year,” explained Hardman. She says because the accident with her dog alerted her to what was going on with her nose, he actually ended up saving her life. Over the next few years, she wasn’t put on the best treatment, and by 2017 her nose had collapsed. The only option was for doctors to remove it. Six weeks after the surgery, she was given her first prosthetic nose, which enabled her to feel normal again. The prosthetic attaches with magnets that are embedded on the edges of the surgical site. Now Hardman has a selection of prosthetic noses that she keeps in a Twinings tea box. She’s now in remission, and undergoes chemotherapy every six months to manage her disease.
