Nadia Ilse tells INSIDE EDITION what her life was life before and after surgery that corrected a facial disformity.
She's the girl with two faces.
Nadia Ilse lived most of her life with a facial disfigurement .
Nadia told INSIDE EDITION, "I would cry myself to sleep sometimes."
She has something called hemifacial microsomia. One half of her face was shaped significantly different from the other half.
Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Thomas Romo told INSIDE EDITION, "Her nose was really sitting towards one side of her face, and the jaw bone was deficient on the other side and her face twisted the other way."
One important definition of beauty is the mathematical symmetry of the face. A 19-year-old is considered the most beautiful woman in the world because her face is perfectly symmetrical. Imagine splitting your face in half and superimposing one side on the other. If your eyes, nose and cheeks line up, it's considered a perfectly symmetrical face.
Nadia endured years of bullying at her school in Georgia because of her looks. They made fun of her ears especially.
"They always said they looked like elephant ears. That they are that big," said Nadia.
Nadia's mother, Lynda, said, "She would come home every night begging me to do something about her ears."
Because her mom could not afford the $40,000 surgery, she went to The Little Baby Face Foundation which offered to cover the all the costs.
Dr. Romo performed the four-and-a-half hour procedure to correct Nadia's facial deformities. He pinned back her ears, evened out her nose and gave her chin implants, all to straighten out her face.
"Her surgery was complicated and it was long," said Dr. Romo.
The results were incredible. Now, her face is closer to alignment. Her features are even with each other. And guess what? Those mean-spirited the bullies who made her life hell have been silenced, and that brings a smile to her new face.
