'I shouldn't have had surgery'
Teen with rare deformity left scarred by operations
Alan before the surgeries
A computer-generated image of what Alan was told he would look like
How Alan looks today
The picture below shows the scars from skin grafts and bone removal to make his new jaw
COSTLY surgery to give a teenager a chin has left him with horrific scars.
Alan Doherty (19), a student from Letterkenny, Co Donegal, is now left wondering whether he should have embarked on the lengthy series of painful operations at a top clinic in New York City.
His unhappy parents are to travel with Alan to meet surgeons at the Mount Sinai clinic early next month to discuss their concerns.
The teen's face has not been transformed into anything like the digitally enhanced image they were shown.
Re-grown
And he has been left with facial scarring and deep scars on his back and groin where bones were removed and re-grown.
"Shortly before we came home we were informed the chin and jaw will all settle down through a period of six months. Now that six months are up and we don't see any difference," stated Alan.
The normally upbeat teen, who communicates using a voice-activated keyboard, also said that laser treatment on his scars had not helped much.
"I didn't expect to be all destroyed, messed up.
"If I were made aware of how my back and jaws would turn out like before I went through any of the procedures, then maybe I wouldn't have gone through the operations," he said.
Alan was born suffering from the extremely rare Otofacial Syndrome, which left him with no jaw or lower face.
He underwent eight operations over the past two years to have his appearance radically transformed.
He has now been informed that he must return to the clinic for further surgery, which could last anything up to six months, and has left his parents with further anxieties.
"Obviously we are not medical experts and we accept we were told not to expect miracles," said his father Danny.
"But the way Alan looks now is far short of our expectations after our initial meetings with the medics at Mount Sinai Hospital. His appearance is nothing like the computer-generated images which were shown at the outset," he said.
Paul McBride, who spearheaded a fundraising drive which raised in excess of €800,000, said the family had been left with the feeling that things had not turned out the way they had been told they would.
"He is a vulnerable teenager that has been through a lot. Quite honestly we would not have the funds to sustain another lengthy surgery," he said.
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