'My doctor dismissed me after nine minutes. Months later, half of my face was gone.'

If it wasn't for the bluntness of a little boy, Jillian never would have booked the doctor's appointment.

The school teacher had also noticed the growth on her nose. But, being so used to prioritising her career and family, she'd chosen to ignore it.

That was until one of her students forced Jillian to face reality. 

"We were getting ready for our school dance and this one boy said to me, 'You've got funny red lines on your nose,'" Jillian told Mamamia.

This one comment, with all the unintentional tactlessness of an honest kid, was the push Jillian needed to ring her GP.

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The doctor referred Jillian to a specialist, who wasted no time in putting a camera up her nose ("a painful and uncomfortable experience," according to Jillian).

His advice came just as quick: stop using your decongestant spray and things should clear right up.

Jillian and her husband were then ushered to the door, with the entire appointment lasting just nine minutes.

But the school teacher, who had ignored her health for so long, had a nagging feeling.

"I don't normally listen to my body," she said. "It tells me a lot of different things, so it's hard to know."

This time, however, she was adamant. The red lines were as bright as ever, the scab was unwavering; and, now, a suspicious lump had formed.

She needed a second opinion.

So, she saw another skin specialist who took biopsies and referred her to a general surgeon.

After running some scans, the surgeon was left "fascinated."

"It is self-contained. It has its own blood supply," she told Jillian.

But when it came to removing it, the doctor was hesitant.

Jillian had a skin cancer on her nose. Image: Supplied

"She said, 'Look, I'm not touching this. I don't know what it is. I don't know whether I can even remove it safely.'"

Jillian was sent interstate for seven more biopsies, none of which yielded a name for the growth on her nose.

By this stage, the teacher couldn't breathe out of one nostril. And she could feel movement in the lump.

"If you looked at me, you couldn't actually see the lump. But I felt it changing; it felt like something was crawling on my skin," she said.

The final biopsy found that the growth had hardened within a matter of weeks, and determined it was skin cancer.

What followed was a big multidisciplinary meeting with plastic surgeons, who would be in charge of removing the cancer.

But it wasn't an easy operation.

"The surgeons didn't know where the edges of the cancer were, and they were trying to be conservative and not take more than they had to," Jillian explained.

"So, for the first surgery, they just took what looked cancerous to them."

Jillian still remembers the first time a medical student removed her facial dressing to reveal her nose.

"The horror on this woman's face was like, 'Okay, I'm still awful,'"

When the medical team told Jillian she would need another surgery, it was a hard pill to swallow.

"Hearing after the first one, 'No, that actually wasn't enough, we need to do it again,' was really quite devastating," she said.

It still wasn't enough.

She had to undergo numerous surgeries. Image: Supplied

"I knew when they brought the tissue box over before the doctor came and saw me that it was not good news," Jillian said.

"I got a bit numb. It was just, 'No, we need to go back and do more.' And that was really hard to hear every time."

By the fourth surgery, part of Jillian's cheekbone had been removed, along with the bridge of her nose.

It became harder and harder to recognise herself.

"The more they took out, the more I didn't feel like myself," she said. "I didn't know who I felt like."

Finally, the growth was removed. And, after radiation, it was time for plastic surgeons to reconstruct her face.

"He wasn't sure how he was going to do it," Jillian remembered.

Eventually, the surgeon decided to use cartilage from Jillian's ribs and veins from her arm to perform two skin grafts.

It was leading plastic surgeon Dr Sparks who led the surgeries, with the first one taking six hours.

Jillian was left in awe.

She is slowly starting to feel like herself again. Image: Supplied

"I didn't even know plastic surgeons did that sort of thing. I thought they were all the boobs and bums," she joked.

"The matching of my normal skin to the graft is incredible," said Jillian. "From one side, you wouldn't even know I'd had anything done."

With each surgery, Jillian started to feel more like herself.

Then, in November 2025, the teacher went under the knife one final time, and had her stitches removed a week later.

It was a big moment for Jillian.

"It was really good to feel more like myself and have a bit more confidence in myself," she said. "That was really, really important to feel a bit more normal."

She's not completely out of the woods yet.

It will take anywhere from six to 12 months for all of the swelling to go down, and Jillian will have to undergo bi-annual MRIs to ensure the cancer hasn't returned.

But, things are slowly starting to "calm down" as she eases back into a routine.

Above all else, Jillian implores everyone to follow our instincts.

"You need to listen to yourself," she said. "If you think something's wrong, get it checked out."

Feature Image: Supplied